


But Water's Wider

by li_izumi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Bang Challenge, Castiel Whump (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Time Having Sex, Dean/Cas Big Bang 2019 (Supernatural), Depression, Episode: s11e23 Alpha and Omega, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Sharing a Bed, suicide ideation, then some not platonic bed sharing and cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 02:49:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21312952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/li_izumi/pseuds/li_izumi
Summary: Without his wings to guide his descent after he was banished by the intruder in the Bunker, Castiel crashes into the ground, leaving his body nearly as broken and bruised as his heart. Only his promise to Dean to protect Sam compels Castiel to stand up again. After days of dragging himself back to the Bunker, Castiel discovers that Sam is all right and Dean is alive! What should be a joyous reunion is marred by Castiel’s self-doubts.  If the Winchesters don’t need him, and Heaven doesn’t want him, where does Castiel belong?[Canon divergent from the end of 11x23 Alpha and Omega]
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 116
Kudos: 446
Collections: DCBB 2019, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for depression and suicide ideation. No suicide attempts are made or even considered in the fic, but some risky behavior and disregard for life is included. Please read (or don't read) with your self-care in mind.
> 
> No Mary. I love Mary, but she was a complication this story didn't need.
> 
> Writing this story was exceptionally challenging for me. Besides a lot of Real Life^tm hecticness, this story fought me tooth and nail the whole way, uphill, in the snow, both ways. I would never have been able to complete this story without the help and support of a great many people.
> 
> Thank you to the [DCBB](https://deancasbigbang.tumblr.com/) mods for all your hard work to organize and run this Bang, and for giving me a chance. 
> 
> Thank you to the [Weekend Writing Marathon](https://weekendwritingmarathon.tumblr.com/) folks for listening to me angst about writing this for months and giving me advice and cheered me on.
> 
> Thank you to my artist [Diminuel](https://diminuel.tumblr.com/), who also had life struggles but still created some incredible, amazing art for my story. <3
> 
> Thank you [Akiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/childofautumn/pseuds/childofautumn) for having to hear about my fic for months, to the point where you could give great advice for it without having read it.
> 
> Thank you to my Grammar Goddess Rachel for finding my missing commas and the typos I could no longer see.
> 
> Thank you to my editor [Ria](https://riazendira.tumblr.com/), who got handed this story way earlier in my process than you usually have to deal with it. Who listened to me cry at you that the story wasn’t working, why wasn’t it working? And who took that half-finished proto-story mess and gave me directions on how to make it work. And with your considerable help we got it to work!
> 
> And beyond thanks for Akiko, Rachel, and Ria for staying up until 2 in the morning to help me with that final read through.
> 
> I hadn’t intended to write two religious-water fics in a row, but here you go, hope you enjoy this labor of love…

_"Blood, as all men know, than water's thicker / But water's wider, thank the Lord, than blood.”_ (From: Aldous Huxley's _Ninth Philosopher's Song_ (1920))

**Chapter 1**

Foot over foot, Castiel trudged down the road leading past the town of Lawrence, Kansas. Every part of Castiel ached, his weariness beyond physical. 

It had taken nineteen hours, fifty-one minutes, and three seconds to even pick himself up from the ground where he had landed. His return had been delayed another twenty-two hours, twenty-one minutes, and seventeen seconds due to an unfortunate incident when he’d tried hitchhiking. The resulting decision that it was necessary to walk the rest of the way back to Lawrence--a trip that even without his need of sleep had so far taken nine days, four hours, and forty-two minutes--meant it had been altogether thirteen days, one hour, seven minutes and fifty-one seconds since the sun had returned and Dean… Dean...

His return had taken too long. What had happened to Sam during this time? Maybe Sam had been able to overcome the intruder who had attacked them and he was fine. Or maybe he was long gone, wondering bitterly where Castiel had been and why he hadn’t protected Sam like he’d promised Dean he would.

If Sam was missing, Castiel could only hope there were clues to be found in the Bunker about where he had gone, or where he’d been taken. If Sam was dead… No. He couldn’t think about that. Sam was alive. He had to be. Castiel couldn’t allow himself to consider that Sam was _dead_. 

(Could he even get into Heaven anymore? Maybe he could force himself past whoever was guarding the gate…)

Castiel stumbled, wrenching his right shoulder as he rebalanced himself. It might have been less painful to have taken the fall. (He’d fallen enough, though not as often as he had failed. What was falling compared to this latest failure? He had _promised_ Dean he would take care of Sam, and so soon after he’d made that promise he’d been blasted seven-hundred and nineteen miles away, leaving Sam to the mercies of whoever had attacked them…)

He rolled his aching shoulders, trying to ease the knots pulling his trapezius tight. At least he hadn’t wrenched his left shoulder as he’d stumbled--though at this point what difference did it make? Every fiber of his being felt stretched thin, aching clear down to the bone, through this physical form even to the light of his true multidimensional self. He hadn’t recovered from his landing, and the days of walking since then had only made the pain worse.

(He hadn’t been banished since he’d lost his wings. He hadn’t realized how much he needed his wings to land…)

Castiel’s Grace had started with his insides first, reforming his ruptured internal organs before moving on to repair his shattered skeleton. It would have moved on to cure his battered skin and aching muscles if he had let it, but he chose instead to move as soon as he physically could, leaving his Grace in a constant battle of trying to heal what he was making worse with his cross-country trek.

A drop of sweat rolled down his forehead. (Sweat? Since when did he sweat? Angels never sweat!) His eye involuntarily winced shut from a sudden stinging pain as the bead of sweat continued its trek into his eye. He tried to blink his eye open a few times, but the pain quickly led him to keep his eye shut. It was almost not worth the effort to haul his hand up to rub his eye as another drop immediately rolled into his eye again.

He kept moving, one step after another.

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot.

Over and over and _over_ again. 

(If only he could fly! But if he had his wings still, he could have controlled his landing when he’d been banished. He wouldn’t have crashed. He wouldn’t have been so broken that it had taken nearly a day before he could move again. He could have flown back instantly and not taken more days to try to hitchhike and then ultimately walk the rest of the way--and the extremes of human interaction that he’d experienced due to his rough-looking state! The kindness of strangers on one hand and the cruelty, the brutality of others.)

His shoes, much like himself, were not meant for this amount of walking. He had known rubber and leather to be rather sturdy materials, but after several days of constant walking, the soles of his shoes were wearing rather thin. They had also rubbed against his heels in a rather uncomfortable--no, _painful_\--way. His pinky toes were getting pushed down so they were starting to roll under his other toes and his arches just plain _hurt_. And if it was just his feet, it would be one thing, but the painful state of his feet was only a fraction of it all. The shin splits were constant now. His hip had developed a discombobulating popping sensation if he took too big of a step. The worst of it was the constant, miserable pain in his back and shoulders.

His fingers twitched as a drop of something rolled down his left forearm. Even though it had been his right arm that he had pulled, his near-fall seemed to have reopened his shoulder wound after all. That would probably explain the vertigo he’d been experiencing for the last dozen steps.

He wanted this to be over. Why couldn’t it be over?

Turning a corner on the road, the cement structure above the Bunker came into his view. He was nearly done with his journey! He was nearly--

(Home? Had he really almost thought that? No, the Bunker wasn’t home. Not for him. It was Dean and Sam’s home.

No, it wasn’t even that anymore. It was _Sam’s _home.)

He had stopped, finally within sight of his destination, but unable to make his feet move another step. He was so close to the end of this journey, but instead of relief he felt tears building. Why was he stopping when he was so close? Had this physical form finally worn out, this body built and rebuilt by his Father, that had been drowned by the Leviathan, and had survived housing Lucifer, had it finally taken a step too far?

No, even though he was exhausted, he knew why he couldn’t finish his trip: the Bunker had been Dean’s home, and Dean was no more.

His knees wobbled. The emptiness that lay inside him was swallowing his heart.

Why did he bother? He was broken down and so worn out and _Dean was gone_. 

Dean’s soul was destroyed so there was no possibility Castiel would ever see him again. Even if Castiel could return to Heaven--and considering what his brothers and sisters had done to him the last time he’d turned to them, it was questionable whether he ever could--it wouldn’t matter because Dean would not be there, could _never_ be there. Dean was utterly and completely no more.

What was the point without Dean? Why did he still exist when Dean did not? Why had he even stood back up on his feet after crashing to the ground from the banishment, instead of remaining on the ground, closing his eyes, and letting his being slip into the oblivion of Emptiness? 

Why hadn’t Dean let Castiel go _with_ him?!

_“No, I got to do this alone. Listen, if--when--when this works, Sam--he’s gonna be a mess. So look out for him, okay?”_

Because Sam. Castiel had promised to watch over Sam for Dean and when he last saw him, Sam had been in trouble. Someone had attacked them in the Bunker and Sam could still be in danger. For Sam’s sake, for his promise to Dean, he had to keep going.

The first step was the hardest, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other and crossed the distance to the Bunker. The door was unlocked. He was certain Sam had locked it behind him. Did that mean Sam was all right? Or was the Winchesters’ Bunker empty, unguarded and unprotected?

The heaviness of the door, the difficulty in pushing it open, had nothing to do with his weakened state. Not physically at least. He eased the door shut behind him, not wanting to make a sound. Without Dean or Sam to invite him in, he was an intruder. He didn’t belong. He didn’t want to leave even the sound of his footsteps as he walked down the hall.

But the Bunker wasn’t the tomb he feared it would be, and it wasn’t abandoned either; voices further inside reached his hearing. The words cleared as he drew nearer.

“So, um. Rowena thinks she has a spell that will track him.”

“Rowena? You called _Rowena_?!”

“We need all the help we can get to find him! We’ve done everything we can already and haven’t gotten anything. She’s incredibly powerful and has got spells and tricks we don’t know exist. If anyone is going to have something to find him, it’s her. Besides, she wants to help deal with those British folks; she has as much of a bone to pick with them as we do. More so, actually.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“I don’t trust her either, but we have common enemies and I trust her more with this than _Crowley_. Don’t try to tell me you haven’t already called him.”

“Yeah, fine. I called him. But he didn’t have anything and he’s a bit busy with some new insurrection in Hell.”

Castiel was very certain the first speaker was Sam, and he was relieved to hear some sign that Sam was still in the Bunker and that he was all right. The second speaker, however, Castiel couldn’t identify. 

The voice sounded entirely too much like Dean and that was impossible.

Another two steps brought him out of the doorway and to the edge of the balcony overlooking the map room. He stopped short. The table in the center of the room was covered with maps of various locales and scales, a laptop, three cell phones, scattered papers and pens. On one side of the table, facing Castiel, stood Sam. His relief at seeing Sam alive and well was pushed aside by his awareness of the other figure, his back to Castiel.

The voice was the same, the back was the same, but it was impossible.

“...Dean?”

“Cas?” Dean responded immediately, as if on instinct.

The brothers looked up, around, turning their heads to find Castiel.

Castiel’s eyes latched onto Dean’s green ones. Their gazes held. Though they spoke not a word, Castiel knew what Dean was not saying with his expression, the same as Castiel was feeling for Dean: you’re alive. I thought you were dead. You’re alive!

Castiel didn’t remember moving, but he stumbled down the stairs. Dean half caught him at the bottom and they were embracing.

The hug wasn’t long enough—nothing would be long enough—but Dean pulled away and Castiel let his arms fall back to his sides despite his desire to cling to Dean more.

Dean used his step back to look Castiel up and down. A concerned frown replaced his smile. “You look like Hell, Cas.”

“Dean! You’re alive?! What about the bomb and the Darkness? What happened?!” Castiel stumbled over his words in his rush to get them out.

“Me? What about you?! You got blasted out of here two weeks ago! Where the Hell have you been all this time?! Why didn’t you call?!”

“Dean!” Castiel snapped back, not willing to budge until Dean told him how he could possibly be standing in front of him.

“Fine. Okay, so it turns out Amara didn’t really want to kill Chuck. I got them to sit down and talk a bit and they reconciled. So Chuck took out the soul bomb and Amara gave me what I most wanted: Peace. Then I got back to find you’d been blasted off. Now what the Hell happened to you?”

“What do you mean? ‘Peace?’ What does that mean?”

“Would you at least sit down or something? You look like a good breeze will blow you over.”

“I’m fine,” Castiel snapped. He was quite aware of his diminished state and didn’t need Dean’s mocking, nor did he want to be put off from Dean’s explanation. What would the Darkness know of peace but death? Nothingness?

Was Dean back but his soul forfeit? If only Castiel had the ability to see directly through Dean’s physical form to see his soul!

Dean rolled his eyes, but said, “Lucifer’s gone. We don’t have to worry about trying to track him down. We don’t have to worry about any more big apocalypse situations, no more big baddies, no more cosmic meddling in our lives. We’re done. We can rest. And speaking of resting, why don’t we sit down and you can explain what the Hell happened--”

“But there are still some threats! Someone broke into the Bunker and attacked Sam.” Castiel turned his attention to find Sam already seated at the table in the center of the room. “When I was blasted away, I was so worried about you. What happened? Who was it that attacked you?”

“The Men of Letters,” Sam answered.

“The Men of Letters?” Castiel repeated, looking confused at Dean then back to Sam. “I thought you were the last of them.”

“Turns out that the Men of Letters organization isn’t quite as dead as we were led to believe,” Sam explained. “The American chapter got wiped out in the 50s, but there’s still a very alive and active British chapter.”

“‘Active’,” Dean snorted derisively as he sat down on the chair across from Sam.

“They’ve been active in other parts of the world, just because they haven’t been here--”

“And where were they during the frigging Apocalypse?! It’s not like that wasn’t a world-wide event where we could have used a bit of support.”

“Sure, but according to Rowena--”

“Oh, yeah, right. ‘According to Rowena’,” Dean sneered.

“I don’t understand,” Castiel broke in, halting the beginning argument between the brothers, their voices too loud for the pounding in his head. Why wouldn’t they get to the point?

“They have a non-involvement pact,” Sam said to Castiel. “So they keep themselves hands-off.”

“Their pact is even more stupid than the Prime Directive,” Dean added, kicking his feet up onto the table.

Castiel tilted his head in puzzlement. “The what?”

“Aw, come on, Cas! The Prime Directive? Fuck, didn’t Meta-douche stick a whole bunch of pop-culture into your head? But you still know bupkis about Star Trek.”

He had no wish to be further mocked by Dean for his lack of appropriate cultural knowledge--no matter the millions of years of knowledge he did possess!--nor did he want to try to explain how he did know Star Trek, and now that it was pointed out to him, he remembered that term. He hadn’t been able to place it without context. Therefore, rather than replying to Dean, Castiel turned towards Sam.

“How were you able to get away from them?”

“Nuh ah. Sam will tell his story after you tell yours,” Dean cut in before Sam could answer.

Knowing Dean wouldn’t budge until he answered, Cas capitulated. “I was banished by the intruder.”

“Yeah, dumbass. I got that part. I want to know where the Hell you’ve been _since_ then and why it took you two fucking weeks to get back here.”

He was quite certain about the length of time he’d been gone, but maybe he’d lost more time when he’d been unconscious than he’d realized? “It hasn’t been two weeks,” he said uncertainly.

Dean threw up his hands. “It’s been close enough and that’s not the point!”

Oh. That had been an exaggeration. For a moment he’d forgotten that humans weren’t as exact with their time keeping, and tended to ‘round up’.

Not wishing to annoy Dean any further, Castiel summed up his trek by stating, “I was thrown some distance away. I walked back.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. “This whole time you’ve been _walking_ back?!”

“I didn’t have any money on me for bus fare,” Castiel explained.

“And what, you forgot you had a phone?” Dean snapped.

“My phone was... unusable.”

“‘Unusable’?! You couldn’t get a power cord somewhere?!”

Castiel scuffed the toe of his shoe on the floor. “My phone was… _damaged_… in my landing from the banishment.”

“And you couldn’t have used some other phone to call?” Dean question came out more like a demand.

“And _who_ would I have called?” Castiel shot back. He knew Dean was angry at him, and yes, he probably could have found another solution to get to the Bunker faster and he probably _should _have since Sam had been in trouble. But after his failed hitchhiking endeavor he knew he couldn’t survive another incident like that, nor another delay like he had needed to recover from it, and he had thought it was ultimately more efficient to walk the rest of the way. Now that he was back and facing Dean’s anger that he’d left Sam in danger for as long as he had, Castiel was regretting that decision. “As far as I knew you were dead and I don’t know Sam’s new number,” Castiel added.

“New number?” Dean asked as he looked questioningly at Sam

Sam coughed out a response that sounded like, “Lucifer.”

“Ah, yeah,” Dean muttered in response as he gave a quick bob of his head.

“What happened with the woman who attacked you? How’d you get away?” Castiel asked to get back to the point.

“I got captured by the group, taken to a place they set up a few hours from here. I was, uh, _aggressively _questioned about my role in recent events, and the status of the ‘hunter network’ here in America,” Sam summed up.

Castiel had the suspicion Sam was downplaying his treatment by his captors, but he let Sam continue his explanation uninterrupted.

“I was able to lock-pick my way out of there, and just as I was getting out of there, Dean found me.”

Dean took up the next part of the story. “I got back to the Bunker to find it empty and blood on the floor. Thankfully, unlike _you_, Sam had his phone on him and I was able to drive out to him.”

“Thankfully they were overconfident enough to think they didn’t need to disable or destroy my phone,” Sam added, as if an attempt to soften the bite of Dean’s rebuke.

“What did these Men of Letters want with you?” Castiel asked, both because he wanted to know and because he wanted to move the conversation away from his own failures.

“Apparently Dean and I are threats to the existence of the world.”

“‘Threats’?” Castiel repeated. “You and your brother have _saved_ the world multiple times!”

“We have kind of _caused _a lot of these threats,” Dean said.

Castiel shook his head. The Winchesters had been pushed by all the forces of Heaven and Hell to start the Apocalypse, and they had been able to stop it despite the weight of Destiny pushing against them. They had done nothing near the extent of what Castiel had done, stealing the souls of Purgatory, playing God, and releasing an ancient race of beings onto the world...

“Anyway,” Sam said, “despite sitting out for multiple end-of-the-world situations, the near-destruction of the sun, life, the universe, and everything, we finally got them to sit up and take some after-the-fact notice that things have been terrible and dangerous for years. So now that we’ve saved the world again, they think they should lock me and Dean up for the safety of the world.”

“No!” Castiel exclaimed. “I won’t let them!”

He might have failed to help Sam before, but he knew now to look out for this group. He wouldn’t fail Dean and Sam again. He could help them. Even if he’d failed before, even though Sam had to save himself...

Sitting up, Dean held up his hands in a ‘settle down’ motion. “Whoa there, cowboy. No one’s locking us up. Besides, in your current condition, what could you do?”

It stung, the reminder of how only his powers registered to Dean. Castiel was quite aware of how diminished his powers had become, but he still had eons of knowledge and experience he could share. But it seemed none of what he knew was the right knowledge. 

“I’m sure I can do something,” Castiel retorted.

“We’re working on upgrading the wards on the Bunker to limit who can come in and out,” Sam cut in. “Using the wards on the garage as a base, we’ve cooked up a super warding which should prevent any more intruders like Ms. Bevil and her team.”

Castiel frowned. “What sort of warding are you using? I didn’t sense anything when I entered and I was able to walk right in…”

“Well, it’s a pretty powerful spell, and we didn’t want to try casting it twice or to mess with it a second time, so we wanted to do it right the first time,” Sam answered.

“We needed to add in _your_ blood,” Dean broke in.

Ah. Of course. Though he might not be much of an angel anymore, angelic blood was a very potent ingredient. When casting high-level warding spells, angelic blood would be useful. Even in his current state, Castiel could at least do _that_ for them.

“I am, of course, always willing to bleed for the Winchesters,” Castiel told them. He’d told them something like that once before when he’d provided his blood for a spell ingredient, and he thought they might smile at the callback to the last time he’d been able to help them in that way.

They didn’t smile, though. Sam gave a look that seemed puzzled and Dean had an expression that at another time Castiel might have thought was aghast.

With his joke falling completely flat, Castiel turned to the work the brothers had on the map table as a means of changing the topic. 

“Is that what you are working on with those maps? Tracking this group?” Castiel approached the table. “I might not have access to my full capabilities,”--as Dean had so frequently noted already--“but I’m sure I can help…”

“It’s not that. It—it doesn’t matter now.” Dean waved his hand dismissively at the pile of things on the table.

“Is it a hunt?” Castiel asked.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, it was a hunt.”

He always seemed to get annoyed when Castiel asked him things that Dean thought should be obvious. Castiel’s stomach knotted. He wasn’t doing anything right.

“I can help,” he offered.

“Jesus Christ, Cas!” Dean exploded. “You’re barely on your feet! It’s been over a week since you got blasted and you’re still this beat-up! What the Hell is wrong with you? Where the hell is your mojo?!”

Castiel wilted under Dean’s anger. Of course. They would rather ask for help from someone like Rowena than him. Without his Grace, he was merely a ‘baby in a trench coat’, after all. Why should he expect Dean and Sam to want him around if he had no ability to be of help?

He would only get in their way, doing more harm than good like he always did. He had been the one that released the Leviathan out into the world. He had banished all of his brothers and sisters to Earth. He had allowed Lucifer out. He couldn’t do anything to help Dean with the Mark of Cain or the Darkness. Without his powers, what good could he do for Dean and Sam on a hunt?

(Of course they were on a hunt. Their life was continuing as normal. Without him. Because they didn’t need him.)

“Would you like some of my blood now?” Castiel asked, hoping that the reminder that his blood was useful and needed would remind the brothers that _he_ was also useful and maybe needed, even if his powers were currently non-existent.

Dean threw up his hands and turned away and Castiel knew he hadn’t said the right thing again.

“We don’t need it now,” Sam said gently, as Sam had always been kind when Castiel misspoke. “It’ll take a bit of time to get the rest of the pieces set up.”

“Look, you’re dropping mud all over the floor,” Dean grumbled. “If you can’t just poof yourself clean, do it the human way. Go take a shower.” In softer tone he added, “You liked it the last time you tried it, right?”

Castiel’s blood went cold and he sucked in a quick inhale of air. Of course. Of course. He’d messed up too badly. He had failed to protect Sam, and there was no greater sin for Dean. His powers were wan; he was of no use to the Winchesters.

Dean had framed his statement almost like a question, but it wasn’t really. Dean’s tone suggested that the answer was a given. Castiel was to go shower. To clean himself the human way. He had liked it the last time he’d tried it. Right.

Yes, he’d liked the shower. It had been so nice to be clean. He hadn’t realized how terrible being constantly dirty had been until he could finally wash it off. It had been cleansing, more than the mere act of washing his body. He washed off his fears and his bad experiences along with the dirt. Humans had forgotten the old rites of purification, but there was power in the act of washing.

And then… And then.

Castiel nodded his acceptance.

“You’re looking a bit rough, are you going to need help cleaning up?” Dean asked.

Castiel shook his head. “I…” he rasped out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’ll be fine.”

Dean gave a slight smile so Castiel knew he’d spoken correctly.

“Take your time,” Dean told him. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Not trusting his voice, Castiel said nothing in response. He turned and walked towards the showers.

* * *

Human memories weren’t as detailed as angelic ones, and Castiel had only been in the Bunker’s showers once before, but entering the shower room brought those memories into sharp focus. The relief of being found, of being saved, and brought ‘home’. The damp, steamy air. The smell of Dean’s soap. The pounding of water on his aching back. Aches, pains, and indignities shuffling off him like the dirt on his skin. Afterwards, the taste of the burrito, hot on his tongue, warm and filling and not rancid. 

The stab in his heart and the chasm in his stomach when Dean told him he couldn’t stay.

His stomach clenched in response to the memory, the premonition of what was certain to be coming again. Why would they want him to stay? He had failed to protect Sam. He had nothing to offer them now, no power to help heal and protect them. 

He had failed then, like he had failed now.

His shoes clicked on the floor tiles as he crossed the room. He shivered. He never used to feel the cold.

It was no wonder Dean was going to tell him to leave. The shower first, at least, was a kindness. He’d had a reminder of how humans could ignore those who most needed help, how humans would turn away, or even to strike out in violence, to those who were unwell and dirty.

His shoes. He needed to remove them. Right one. Then left one. Why did his feet hurt more with the shoes off? He’d thought they’d feel better without the pinching.

Mud-covered shoes were supposed to be knocked together outside of the Impala so they didn’t track mud into Dean’s beloved car. Castiel hadn’t knocked the mud off his shoes before coming into the Bunker; he didn’t know if that rule was only for the Impala or if it applied for the Bunker as well. But Dean had complained about him tracking the mud into the Bunker, so maybe it _did _apply to the Bunker. Dean liked things clean. Castiel needed to clean his shoes.

Vile things, these shoes. He didn’t want to even _look_ at them, let alone wear them again. They weren’t worth the effort of cleaning them. He could leave the shoes on the floor of the shower, let the runoff water clean them. Yes. That was a good idea. He could get them clean without any effort on his part.

He slipped off his coat. It was more torn up in the back than he’d realized, and nearly disintegrated in his hands. It didn’t matter; he didn’t actually need it. The rest of his clothes though… 

Castiel remembered doing laundry when he had been human. He had gotten to use a laundry machine once, in addition to the one time he had almost used one when he first fell. Usually he had used a sink; he hadn’t had enough clothes to justify the dollar-twenty-five cost for a washing machine. Dean and Sam would have a washing machine in the Bunker, and it probably wouldn’t cost money. But it would take time.

Would the Winchesters give him the time he would need to wash his clothing? He didn’t want to impose on them more than he already was by using their shower. What could he do?

He could clean his clothes in the shower like he was cleaning his shoes. What a great idea! He would even be able to scrub them better if he left them on his body. He’d be able to clean them without having to bother Dean and Sam for their laundry machine. He might not be able to do anything for them, but he could at least minimize how much he imposed upon them.

Castiel turned on the shower and stood on the edge, waiting for the water to heat up.

Wait. Dean and Sam hadn’t showered yet. Castiel would be first in line. He had liked it when he was among the first to shower at the shelter; the first few people got to have hot water. When he hadn’t been fast enough, the water was always unpleasantly cold. What if Dean and Sam were going to take a shower after him? They had a hunt they are working on. They might want to shower before they left for the hunt. Castiel didn’t want Dean and Sam to have a cold shower because he had used up all the hot water. _They _deserved the hot water.

Castiel turned the knob back to cold. He climbed under the spray of water. It was frigid. Castiel’s teeth chattered. But it was worth it so he didn’t impose any further on Dean and Sam. They had some hunt they were working on. It was important.

(He hadn’t been important. They were working on some hunt. Had they realized he had been gone? Had they wondered what had happened to him? Had they even thought about him?)

It was so warm, too warm. Were the lights growing dim? It was growing dark, he could only see straight in front of him. Everything was narrowing.

Yes, he did think it might be a good idea to sit down now...


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_Peace_, Amara had said she’d given him in return for helping her and Chuck find peace between them, and so far with Cas being MIA Dean hadn’t been feeling particularly peaceful. (When he’d gotten back to the Bunker, and there was all this blood, and Sam and Cas were gone, and there was a bloody banishment sigil painted on the wall… fuck!)

But now Cas was back! He was a bit beat up, sure--(was there anything left of his trench coat? It looked like it was hanging on by threads!)--but he seemed mostly all right. Sam was all right. For once, Dean’s family was all safe and sound and home with him. They had saved the day, stopped yet another apocalypse, and nobody’d had to die or to sacrifice themselves somehow to do it. (Yeah, okay, Sam was going to take on the Mark of Cain to lock Amara up again, and Dean had been about to blow himself up with a soul bomb to take her down, but the point was that in the end, they _hadn’t_ had to sacrifice themselves or something, or someone, they loved to save the world this time. They were all safe and alive and _here_.)

Cas was _here_.

They didn’t have any archangels, demon knights, or ancient cosmic forces of Darkness they had to fight. There was no fucking big crisis for Cas to run off and try to fix on his own. He could finally… _stay_.

He could finally stay with h--them.

They’d watch some movies--Dean would show Cas all the best ones--he’d teach Cas about music--Led Zeppelin was a must, of course--and he, Sam, and Cas would go on some hunts together. It was gonna be great.

Sure, Cas was a bit banged up right now, and entirely too willing to bleed out on the floor if he thought it would solve some crisis, but he was home and safe and Dean and Sam could help patch whatever injuries he had. Cas could take it easy for a few days. Weeks even. However long it took.

(Why _was_ he still so banged up? Was he Falling again? Or had housing Lucifer drained down his batteries? Was it a temporary depowering or was he going human again?)

If Cas was powered down, he was going to be more human-like. He’d have _human _needs. Dean could cook for him, and he’d smile and say how much he lo-enjoyed it. And if Cas needed to sleep now, then he might doze off when they were watching movies together, and his head could droop down onto Dean’s shoulder, and--

As if Sam still had psychic powers and could read his mind--though thankfully he couldn’t, or he’d be asking something a lot different--he mused, “Do you think Cas needs to eat and sleep now?” 

While Dean had gotten distracted by his own thoughts, Sam had gathered up the maps on the table. With Cas back, they didn’t need to scry for him anymore and they didn’t need Cas getting upset over how much they’d been doing to get him back. He tended to get a bit withdrawn when they made any sort of fuss over him.

“Maybe we should make him something for dinner when he gets out of the shower,” Sam continued, setting the maps back to their usual spot in the library.

“I don’t know,” Dean answered. His stomach growled. “Yeah, okay. Dinner sounds like a good idea,” he concluded.

But what would Cas want?

“We’re a bit low on supplies,” he pondered. “We don’t have any of those frozen burritos he liked. Besides burgers, that’s pretty much the only thing I know he likes.”

Though he’d been talking out loud, he’d been more or less talking to himself, so he was a bit startled when Sam chimed in.

“He liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When he was human. He was pretty sad when he became an angel again that he couldn’t enjoy eating it anymore. If he’s powered down, he might be able to taste it again, and I’d bet that would make him pretty happy.”

Dean frowned. He hadn’t known about this love of peanut butter and jelly. When had Sam learned of it? He knew Sam and Cas had been talking and texting a bunch the year before, but he’d thought most of it had been about him and the Mark of Cain. How did the topic of peanut butter even come up?! ‘Dean’s off his rocker again, and by the way, how do you feel about peanut butter?’ or something? He knew that Cas and Claire texted pretty regularly, but he hadn’t realized Sam and Cas had as well.

And it was fine. He was glad Sam and Cas talked. They were friends. They _should_ talk. It was just… he hadn’t realized that they _did _talk. And that they’d talked more than _he_ and Cas had. Between staying away because he’d felt guilty for having to kick Cas out of the Bunker, to his head not being in the right place with the Mark of Cain to _Lucifer_ possessing Cas for most of last year, the bit of texting Dean had started to do regularly with Cas fizzled up and died before it had become a regular thing. He hadn’t considered that just because he and Cas hadn’t texted much, it didn’t mean that _Sam_ and Cas hadn’t been.

Well, they had been, apparently. Enough that Cas confided to Sam that he liked peanut butter and jelly and was sad he couldn’t taste them since getting his Grace back.

But if peanut butter and jelly would make Cas happy, he’d make him peanut butter and jelly. Did they even have peanut butter and jelly? He knew they had peanut butter. He was pretty sure they didn’t have bread, like sandwich bread, but they had burger rolls, and he could make a sandwich with those. The question was jelly. He didn’t think they had any.

By this point, they’d put away all the stuff they’d had out trying to find Cas, and the longer Dean spent belly-aching about how much Sam and Cas talked without him, the sooner Cas would be out of his shower and ready for some food. Besides, Sam didn’t need his help to start the phone tree canceling their manhunt for Cas.

As he left Sam to his phone calls, heading towards the kitchen, Sam called out to him, “Make sure it’s jelly, not jam. He had strong opinions on jelly over jam.”

Dean almost tripped over his own feet. Fucking hell.

“Hey Jody. You can stop looking through the police scanners. Yes, we found him--” Sam’s voice faded behind him as Dean walked down the hall to the kitchen.

He grabbed himself a beer, then he searched through the fridge and drawers. As he’d suspected, they didn’t have any jelly. There was a big ol’ tub of peanut butter, and they still had some bread, but it was no-go on jelly. Or even jam.

Dean frowned. He’d have to buy jelly. He didn’t have time to make a run to the store now, with Cas likely to be out of his shower at any moment, but he’d add it to the to-do list for tomorrow. For now, he’d make Cas something else.

Dean had the ingredients for burgers, and he could make some damn-fine ones. Cas had absolutely _loved _shitty fast food; he was going to go apeshit over Dean’s homemade burgers...

* * *

The showers in the Bunker were pretty damn awesome. Fuck knows how many times Dean had lost track of time zoning out while enjoying the spray of hot water on his back. His showers could also get pretty long when he took the time to ‘clean out his pipes’. But Cas had gone from ‘taking a _long _shower’ to ‘becoming Aquaman’ and Dean was officially freaking the fuck out now.

With his burger done and gone, Dean had nothing else to keep him occupied. Unable to keep still, he paced the library restlessly, eyeing the long-since cooled burger he’d made for Cas.

“Could you stop that, Dean? You’re making me dizzy.”

Even Sam’s burger was gone, and he’d kept putting his down to make phone calls: Jody, Donna, Claire. Even Rowena. Dean wasn’t unhappy that they weren’t going to need her help to find Cas after all, though from the sounds of their conversation, Sam was still collaborating with her concerning the British Men of Letters. Common enemy and all that. Dean didn’t trust Rowena as far as he could throw her--though she was pretty tiny, so he could actually throw her pretty far...

“He’s probably fine, you know. You _did_ tell him to take his time, but if you’re that worried, you _could_ check on him.”

Fuck, what the hell was taking Cas so long? Sure, he looked pretty rough, but none of his injuries had looked life-threatening.

“And here we go…”

Fuck, what if his injuries had been worse than Dean realized? Yeah, he was up and walking, but he could be mangled under that oversized shapeless coat of his and Dean would never know! What if he’d passed out in the shower?! Shit. Shit!

“Three, tw--Aw... A little early...”

Sam’s voice trailed off as Dean turned on his heal and marched out of the library. 

Each step was faster, until he was all but running down the hall towards the showers.

The door was closed.

Dean hammered on the door. “Cas. Cas!”

There was no response, but Dean could hear the sound of the shower running. He flung the door open.

Cas’s oversized shapeless coat was draped over the sink. Further in the room, the shower was on, water cascading down, down to the base of the shower where Cas’s other clothes were piled in a heap.

No. It wasn’t his clothes. It was Cas. Cas was collapsed on the floor of the shower.

Shit! Dean jumped forward across the room.

Cas _had_ passed out in the shower. Shit. He passed out _before_ he started taking a shower; he’d gotten his coat and shoes off, but he hadn’t even removed his clothes before he’d passed out.

Dean reached through the water towards Cas and pulled his hand back, shocked. The water was ICE. Dean swore some more and turned off the water. He knelt down at Cas’s side.

Cas was very cold, and completely unresponsive.

“No. Don’t _do_ this to me, Cas!”

He felt around Cas’s head. There weren’t head wounds or bumps. Cas hadn’t hit his head on his way down, at least, but he’d been passed out under a frozen shower for who knows how long. He needed to get Cas warm and dry, asap.

“Sam!” Dean bellowed, and then again in case the first wasn’t loud enough, “Sam!”

While he struggled to remove Cas’s suit jacket, he could hear his brother’s footsteps clodding down the hall.

“Dean!” Sam’s momentum carried him partially past the door. “What’s wro--oh!” he exclaimed as he pulled his head into the room. “Cas?!”

“Gather up all the clean blankets we’ve got,” Dean ordered, not bothering to look up from his current task. The jacket was cold, wet, clammy, and practically gripping Cas’s arms judging by how hard it was to peel off him. “Your bed, my bed, anything we have that isn’t covered in 60 years of dust. Get them all onto Cas’s bed.”

Sam didn’t need further instruction, taking off out of the room and back down the hall, leaving Dean to his scant victory of having removed the sodden suit jacket.

Dean looked at Cas, looked at the rest of his clothes. “Fuck it,” he muttered and took out his boot knife.

His hands were getting numb from handling Cas’s clothes, but he went slow and steady so he wouldn’t cut Cas while he cut his clothes off, starting with his tie and shirt, then his pants, and finally even his socks and underclothes.

As piece by piece the clothing was removed, the skin underneath was revealed and Dean discovered Cas was far more injured than Dean had previously realized. Not that it was easy to tell how big he was with the ill-fitting clothes he always wore, but Cas was usually pretty _jacked_ and now he was noticeably thinner. His stomach had sunk in and he just seemed _smaller_.

Beyond the weight loss, his body was _covered_ in bruises, dark and ugly. He was cut up, and a particularly nasty wound on his shoulder--was that a _knife_ cut?!--was still raw and weeping, though the hour plus in the shower had washed off a lot of the blood at least. How the hell did he have so many bleeding wounds and not have blood all over him when he was standing in front of them before?! Cas’s coat was covered in dirt, not blood! If Dean had known how injured Cas was, he wouldn’t have sent him off to shower. He’d have at least stitched up his shoulder!

And why did he still have wounds like this? What the fuck was going on with this Grace?!

Fuck, that wound on his shoulder should probably be sewn up, but Dean wasn’t going to bother with that for now. Cas wasn’t in any danger of bleeding out but he was in danger of hypothermia!

Dean grabbed all the towels he could get to cover Cas with them, less a move to preserve Cas’s modesty and more an attempt to start getting Cas warm and dry.

He lifted Cas up so his back was off the floor and used one of the towels to wipe down his hair. Fuck, he was so cold…

Sam returned with the softest blanket they’d found in the Bunker. He moved around Dean and placed the blanket around Cas’s shoulders while Dean got to his feet. 

His knee buckled and he stumbled to the side, hitting the sink with his hip. With Sam taking the brunt of Cas’s weight, Dean kicked out his legs, getting some warmth and feeling back into them. He’d been so focused on Cas he hadn’t considered how shitty kneeling in ice cold water was on his knees!

While waiting for Dean to be ready, Sam said, “I moved all the clean blankets over to Cas’s, and I got a couple hot water bottles under the blankets to pre-warm them up.”

“Good thinking.” Dean agreed.

With stiff fingers, Dean took up position on Cas’s side. He pointed out the shoulder wound to Sam. Though his eyes widened in surprise, Sam understood Dean’s wordless warning and shifted his grip on Cas to prevent aggravating it.

The towels dropped to the floor as they lifted Cas up. Dean would clean them up later. He’d probably forget about it until he went to take a shower and all the towels were a dirty mass on the floor, but that was a problem for later. The problem for now was getting Cas down the hall to his room.

It was a good thing Dean and Sam were used to digging up graves and hauling around dead bodies; they had some experience lifting up dead weight. They were both no slouches in the weight-lifting category either, but it was a struggle to lift and carry Cas to his room. Despite having obviously lost weight, Cas was heavier than a normal human. Dean thought Light was supposed to be, well, _light_. Then again, Cas was cramming something the size of the Chrysler building into a human form, so that probably added some weight. 

They couldn’t get to Cas’s room fast enough. Once there, they dumped him a little gracelessly onto his bed. Sam stepped back while Dean situated Cas on the bed. He got him under the covers, and shifted the heated bottles of water under the blankets around Cas’s feet.

At the sound of rustling fabric, he turned around and found Sam stripping out of his clothes.

“W--what are you doing?!”

“Our body heat is the best and quickest way to warm Cas up in a hurry.”

Yeah, okay, that was true. But Cas was _naked_. And if _he_ got naked... But Cas was unconscious. And he wouldn’t want… and then there was _Sam_…

Sam got down to his t-shirt and boxers before _thank god _he stopped. He climbed under the mound of blankets, situating himself to Cas’s right, leaving Dean standing like a lump still fully dressed.

“Hurry up, Dean. Stop being an idiot and strip down and climb into bed next to Cas on the other side. He needs warmth _now_.”

Dean kept his back to Sam as he peeled off his clinging wet clothes so Sam wouldn’t see how bright red his face was. His shirt was hard enough to pull off, but his fingers were too swollen and stiff, making it a challenge to untie his boots and unbuckle his pants. By the time he’d gotten everything off, he was too frustrated to do anything but leave things in a wet heap on the floor. He’d deal with it tomorrow. No matter how much leaving a messy pile irked him. It wasn’t going to mold overnight.

Sam, the asshole, was the only one of them who had dry clothes, and unlike the heaps of Cas’s and Dean’s clothes, Sam’s were neatly folded in a pile. Throwing a glare at his frustratingly oblivious brother, Dean climbed into bed on Cas’s other side. 

Fuck, this was NOT how he wanted to get in bed with Cas!

Geez, Sam had managed to gather a ton of blankets. For the moment, it was heaven. Once he warmed up, he was going to get miserably overheated, but he’d put up with it for Cas’s sake. And oh, fuck! There was no danger of overheating anytime soon. Cas’s legs were blocks of ice! 

Dean shifted onto his side, throwing his left leg over Cas’s leg, his arm brushed up against Sam’s as they both had their arms thrown across Cas’s chest, using their own bodies as another blanket across him.

Compared to his chilled body and Cas’s frozen one, Sam’s arm was almost burning with its warmth. It was too much but not enough. Cas’s body was like a block of ice, endlessly devouring any heat brought in contact with it.

It was making Dean’s cold body even colder. But whatever. Dean would give every bit of warmth he had to Cas if it would help Cas get warm. If it helped Cas be all right again…


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Castiel felt warm and safe, floating contented in a way he hadn’t felt since he was a fledgling.

Something was draped across his torso--he had a torso? Yes, he had a physical form. A body. _His_ body. A wing--no, an arm. It tightened around him.

There was something drawing him to the side; he wiggled closer, wanting to be closer to… whatever it was.

Closer… closer... 

“Go back to sleep,” the gruff, familiar voice of Dean muttered sleep-thick in his ear.

Dean.

Castiel jolted to full consciousness, and his body jack-knifed upwards as if spring-loaded.

“Bwah…?” Another being--Sam, who had apparently been curled up beside him--mumbled as he flailed off the bed.

There was a thump on the floor, followed by a groan. A large hand flumped onto the mattress a foot from Castiel’s face. Gripping the bed with that large hand, Sam clawed himself upright. He stood unsteadily on his feet, clad only in his boxers and a short-sleeved shirt, and he blinked blearily around for whatever threat had woken him up so suddenly.

“Well, there’s the fabled grace of a moose,” a voice said, drawing Castiel’s attention away from Sam. Dean sat up on the bed beside Castiel, stretching his arms up and letting out a huge yawn before sleepily adding, “It’s like poetry in motion. Ballet.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sam grumbled as he rubbed his face with both hands, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “I’d like to see you do better.”

“I did. I stayed on the bed.” Dean stood up, his stretch continuing to encompass his entire body.

The warmth that had enveloped Castiel moments before had been peeled away, leaving him cold. And confused.

He had no idea how he had gotten into a bed bracketed by Dean and Sam. Had they fallen asleep watching a movie together? But this wasn’t either Dean’s or Sam’s room, and there was no television or laptop. He actually had no memory of how he had gotten here.

He... didn’t... _remember _how he’d gotten here.

He was an angel; he could remember everything from the several billion years of his life, but he couldn’t remember how he had gotten into this bed with Dean and Sam. Why couldn't he remember?! Think. Think!

He remembered returning to the Bunker. 

Dean was alive. Sam was too...

They hadn’t needed him.

Because... he hadn’t protected Sam. Dean and Sam, they had saved themselves. They hadn’t needed him.

They hadn’t _thought _about him. They were working on a hunt... Because they were heroes who saved people.

Unlike him.

He had stumbled back to the Bunker. Dirty. Bloody. His Grace low. He’d been unable to heal or clean himself.

Dean had told him to take a shower... Castiel needed to be clean if he was going to survive alone in the world again. When Dean would tell him he wasn’t needed. And he had to leave the Bunker.

So Castiel had gone to the shower. He needed to clean himself. He needed to clean his clothes...

He didn’t remember finishing the shower. Why didn’t he remember?

A hand pressed against his shoulder, trying to push him back down towards the bed. Dean’s face was next to his, eyes filled with concern.

“You’re looking a bit peaky there, buddy. Lie back down.”

“I’m fine,” Castiel replied automatically.

“Bullshit. You passed out in the shower.”

Ah. So that was why he didn’t remember finishing his shower. He’d passed out. Because of his inability to heal himself, he had passed out and had been a burden for Dean and Sam. Again.

That explained why he couldn’t remember his shower, but how had he gotten into bed with Dean and Sam? Dean wouldn’t like it. He needed his ‘personal space’. He found it ‘creepy’ for Castiel to watch him in his sleep. And ‘dudes don’t climb into beds with other dudes’ because that was also ‘creepy’.

“Cas?”

He had apparently broken all those rules last night and he didn’t know how it had happened, but he had already failed Dean, and now he had somehow taken advantage of Dean and gotten into bed with him, making it even worse.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Cas. Don’t get up. You can take your time to recover.”

Sam returned to the room carrying a box. Castiel hadn’t even noticed him leave.

“I didn’t think you would be up for trying a shower again, so I brought some supplies to clean up your wounds so we can patch you up,” Sam said as he took Dean’s place on the bed next to Castiel.

Castiel angled his torso to allow Sam to do what he wanted.

He flinched at the shock of a cold, damp cloth on his arm. Sam pulled back, his expression apologetic.

“I’m sorry, this might sting a little.”

“No, it’s fine,” Castiel said, steeling himself up so he wouldn’t show any further weakness.

It was easier this time, now that he was prepared for the cold. The washcloth was rough on his torn-up skin, though Sam was careful not to apply too much pressure or scrub too firmly. Castiel felt more discomfort in having Sam so close to him, and he found it easier to look around the room than to look at Sam.

The bedroom Dean and Sam had brought Castiel to was gray and sparse. Besides the bed, there was a desk with a chair across the room, and a small end table holding a lamp next to the bed, but no other furnishings. A few blankets had been bunched up at the end of the bed, which must have been kicked off sometime overnight. There was a pile of more blankets on the floor where Sam had fallen off the bed, leaving only a sheet and some pillows on the bed itself.

When Sam had finished cleaning Castiel’s injuries, he got up, allowing Dean the spot next to Castiel again. While Dean stitched up Castiel’s shoulder wound, Sam came around to the other side of the bed and applied some cream to the cuts on Castiel’s face. Castiel didn’t know where to look; they were _both_ too close to him, entirely too focused on him. He didn’t know what to do with having both Dean and Sam fussing over his injuries.

He looked down at his hands in his lap, gripping at the sheets pooled around his waist.

Oh! The sheets!

Oh no… There were several small patches and one large patch the rust-red of dried blood. He had bled all over them during the night, and he could no longer clean them instantly any more than he could use his powers to clean his own clothes.

“Cas, what’s wrong?” Sam asked.

“The sheets,” he said, dismayed. “I’ve gotten them soiled.”

At least with the addition of the sheets to his own clothes, Castiel had enough for a load of laundry. He could do that at least. They’d give him enough time to do a load of laundry, surely, before they asked him to leave.

“Let me do it,” Castiel said, gathering up the sheets around him. “I can do laundry. I can do these along with my own clothing--”

He’d pulled at the sheets, piling them into his lap and uncovering his legs. His bare legs. He lifted the pile of sheets off him to confirm. He wasn’t wearing a single item of clothing, not even his boxers.

Dean’s brows furrowed in an expression Castiel couldn’t identify, his face going red as he turned away.

What had Castiel done wrong? He remembered a time when he had made Nora double over laughing, her face as red as Dean’s was now. But it didn’t appear that Dean was laughing at him. So it was probably the other possibility: Dean was embarrassed that Castiel was naked. That made sense. Nudity was considered shameful for humans. He lowered the sheet back down, covering his lower body.

He didn’t remember removing his clothes, but Dean had said he had collapsed in the shower, so he must have. 

“Why don’t we move you over to my bed, or Dean’s bed,” Sam suggested gently. “You can rest there while we strip and wash these--”

Castiel shook his head. “No. This is my mess. I should clean it up. I need to wash my clothes as well, anyway.”

Dean tensed.

Oh. They weren’t going to give him the time to do laundry. He was going to need to leave sooner than that.

“Where is my clothing?”

“The thing about your clothes… That is…” Dean stumbled over his words. “You’d collapsed in the shower, and I had to warm you up. Quickly. So I, um, I had to cut your clothes off you.”

That was unfortunate. He would need to fix them in addition to washing them. How much time was that going to take? 

Both Dean and Sam were looking at him expectantly. To prompt them to continue, he asked, “So they need some repair?” 

Dean’s mouth dropped open and he looked incredulously at Castiel. “Cas. I had to _cut_ them off you. They ain’t clothes anymore, they’re _scraps_.”

“You had to destroy my clothes? My only clothes?” Castiel asked, dismayed.

He had gotten the suit and coat from his hard-earned money from his time at the Gas ‘n Sip. He had saved a whole week’s pay and had Nora drive him to the local GoodWill. He had even been able to find something like his old coat!

The few items he’d gotten to care for his human self… one by one they had been lost. His toiletries he’d thrown out when he’d ingested Theo’s Grace and no longer needed to manually clean himself. Metatron had taken and lost his car. Now his clothing had been destroyed. As an angel he shouldn’t care about material things, but he had been living among humans, he had _been_ a human, and he had a certain level of fondness for his few possessions.

And now they were gone.

No, surely not everything was gone. There had to be at least one item left.

“What about my tie?” 

Dean shrugged helplessly. “I cut it off at the knot. It’s useless now.”

Of course. If a tie cut at the knot was undone, the tie would be two strips of blue fabric, too short for anything. Cut off from the body, a tie could no longer function as a tie.

Something that couldn’t serve its intended purpose was... useless. Unneeded. Scraps.

Something to discard.

“I thought his coat was okay?” Sam asked in a whisper to Dean.

“The overcoat? It didn’t really handle the two-week cross country walk.”

“I meant the suit one. You hadn’t cut that one.”

Dean shot his brother a dark look. “Yeah, okay, I didn’t cut the suit coat. But it’s not useable anymore. Suits are dry-clean only for a reason.”

“I see,” Castiel said.

So Castiel had ruined his clothing himself, even before Dean had cut them off. Of course. What hadn’t Castiel ruined himself?

Now he had nothing. Not even ‘the clothes on his back’.

Dean stood up quickly. “I-I’ll grab you some of my clothes. They should fit. And you can wear them as long as you want. Forever if you want. Or we can get you new clothes. As soon as you’re feeling better. We can go into town and get you new clothes. Whatever you want.”

Before Castiel could respond, Dean rushed out of the room. 

Dean was so eager to have Castiel leave that he was willing to give Castiel his own clothes!

Sam put his hand on Castiel’s shoulder, drawing Castiel’s eyes up to him. Sam smiled sadly.

“Dean will get you something to wear. I’m going to the kitchen to make us some coffee. You could probably use a warm drink, and I know I need some caffeine. Then I’ll clean up these sheets and get you settled.”

“But--”

Sam waved him off. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

As Castiel stood up so Sam could take the sheets, he looked back down at the pile of blanketson the floor. They must have been necessary last night, since he’d had hypothermia, but sometime during the night, the extra blankets hadn’t been needed and had been kicked off the bed.

Discarded when they were no longer needed. Like his tie.

Sam finished gathering up the soiled sheets. Pointedly not looking at Castiel, he left, leaving Castiel alone in the room. Alone with nothing.

Alone, waiting for Dean to return.

* * *

Castiel tugged at the henley Dean had given him, smoothing the shirt down over the top of his borrowed jeans. The clothes fit him, though perhaps a bit more snugly on his form than the clothes he was more accustomed to wearing. The jeans were snug around his thighs and the shirt was snug around his chest.

He turned left and raised his arms up, then turned right and brought his arms down low. The fit was different than what he was used to, but it wasn’t bad. He still had sufficient range of motion and though the clothing was snug, it wasn’t tight or uncomfortable.

He would need to get his own clothing, but for now he would have to impose on Dean’s generosity.

He twisted again, the unfamiliar cloth sliding across his body. Strange, but not unpleasant. The clothing was soft. Warm.

He was in Dean’s clothes. His jeans. His boxers. His shirt.

Despite having slept, he felt weak in his knees and a little light-headed as his heart beat a touch too fast.

He sat on the bed to catch his breath. Next to him was another shirt, the last item from the pile of clothing Dean had handed him. It was an outer layer like Dean and Sam always wore. Should he put on the flannel as well? Despite having apparently been hypothermic the night before, Castiel wasn’t feeling particularly cold now.

The flannel was soft, and smelled of Dean.

Castiel put it on.

Dean told him to come to the kitchen when he had dressed. He didn’t want to face Dean--to show how much of a failure he was, that he hadn’t been able to heal himself or properly care for his clothes--but he wasn’t in any position to refuse Dean’s requests. He didn’t need to try Dean’s patience by delaying the inevitable talk Dean wanted to have with him.

With no justification for waiting any longer, Castiel walked to the kitchen.

Dean stood at the stove, his back to Castiel. He held a steaming mug in one hand and a spatula in the other. He sipped at his drink while poking at whatever he was cooking. Sam sat at the kitchen table, holding a large mug with both hands up at his mouth.

Sam smiled as he noticed Castiel, and set his mug down. “You’re looking good, Cas.”

Dean turned around, mid-sip from his drink. He choked, sploshing his coffee out of his mug as he coughed, his face bright red. 

Castiel took a half step toward Dean to help, but Dean waved him off, turning his back to Castiel.

“Dean?” Castiel asked, concerned.

“He’s fine,” Sam assured him. “Come sit down. Do you want some coffee? Or would you prefer tea? I think we’ve got some Earl Grey because it makes Dean think of Captain Picard.”

Castiel hovered uncertainly at the door. Sam was smirking at him, and Dean couldn’t even stand to look at him. 

“Cas? Would you like some coffee?” Sam repeated, the smile slipping off his face and his voice tinged with concern.

“I--I’m not hungry,” Castiel said, not even sure if that was true or not. 

Sam frowned. “Would you at least like a glass of water?”

“No. I...I should go…”

Dean looked up, his expression sharp. 

“Are you still not feeling well?” Dean asked. Without waiting for an answer, which was good because Castiel had no idea what he could say, Dean decided, “You’re looking pale.” 

While Sam started to his feet, Dean crossed the room in two large steps.

Setting his hand on Castiel’s elbow, Dean led him through the door. “Let’s get you back to the room so you can lie down again.”

“I’ll be fine,” Castiel demurred. “I can get there on my own. You should finish your cooking.”

Dean looked behind him at the smoking pan on the stove. “Shit!” he cursed, and jumped to it.

Castiel left while Dean’s back was turned, busy with the stove. He wasn’t tired and had no desire to lie down, but if Dean wanted him to lie down in the room, it meant Dean didn’t want to kick him out of the Bunker yet. He knew he was taking advantage, but not knowing quite what else to do, Castiel went back to the room.

* * *

Sam watched Cas walk obliviously out of the room, completely missing how Dean couldn't help turning his head to stare forlornly like a dog left behind while Cas walked out of sight.

It was pretty gross, the expression on Dean’s face, but not nearly as gross as seeing his brother pop a boner because Cas was wearing his clothes. Having grown up on top of each other, Sam already knew more than he wanted to know about his brother’s sex life; he did _not_ need to know any more about Dean’s kinks. Gross. 

Dean was still all starry-eyed, staring at the door as if he could see through the wall to watch Cas walking down the hall, and so _he _was completely missing Sam’s expression, a perfect blend of disgusted and judgemental. Seriously, Cas was their friend!

Sam slammed his coffee mug onto the table, and the noise snapped Dean out of his daze.

“So, um.” Dean cleared his throat. “When I’m out today, I’ll pick up a T.V.”

Sam looked at his brother in confusion. Where was that coming from?

“For Cas.”

Sam frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? Last time he watched in your room, but now that we’ve got Cas back, we don’t have anything we need to go out and do. We don’t have any hunts lined up. Figured you both wouldn’t want to be on top of each other crowded in your room, so he’ll need one set up in his room.”

Of course that would be the part Dean would focus on. After growing up on top of each other in tiny motel rooms, Dean was intensely protective of having his own space. Sam didn’t care if Cas wanted to watch television in his room. He wasn’t so sensitive about his personal space, which is why he’d let Cas use it last time he was convalescing in the Bunker. It wasn’t the use of his room that Sam was concerned about.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to let him hole up and watch a bunch of T.V.,” Sam explained.

“You saw how banged up he is. He passed out in the shower and was swaying on his feet just now. He needs to take it easy for a few days. Do you expect him to be staring at the wall the whole time?”

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother’s deliberately obtuse argument. “I’m not saying he shouldn’t have something to do, but I don’t think it is a good idea to encourage him to hide away and start bingeing T.V.. Last time he did nothing but watch Netflix for weeks. It’s not healthy.”

Dean scoffed. “After everything he’s gone through, he fucking deserves a chance to lay low and relax! If he wants to do nothing but watch T.V. for weeks, he’s earned it.”

“I’m not saying he shouldn’t be resting for a while, but I’m worried about encouraging him to spend all his time _alone _watching television.”

“He’s not going to be alone. I--We’re going to be there with him. We don’t have anything we have to be doing, we can spend some time hanging out with Cas. Hell, I’ve got a list of things We need to show Cas! Dude, it’s going to be AWESOME!” Dean’s voice rose in volume as he excitedly rattled off the list of things he wanted to watch with Cas.

Sam was happy Dean was excited, but he couldn’t put aside his concern. Last time they’d let Cas spend all day watching television, that was _all_ he did for weeks, and when he finally got himself out of the Bunker, nearly the first thing he did was he let himself get possessed by Lucifer in a vain attempt to do something against the Darkness. Letting Cas spend all day bingeing television was _not_ a good thing!

But Dean wasn’t hearing it. He was convinced it wasn’t a big deal, and he had a whole list of things he wanted to watch with Cas. As if they were going to have the time! Just because Amara and Lucifer were gone, didn’t mean they didn’t have other monsters to hunt. They still had the British Men of Letters to deal with. From the conversations he’d had with Rowena, that group wasn’t going to let one setback stop them. The British Men of Letters would be back, and they had to be ready to face them when they did.

Sam tried again to explain his concerns. “I think there’s something else going on here, Dean. He reacted pretty strongly to the idea that he bled on the sheets--”

Dean shrugged, his attention on the pan of eggs in front of him. “Dude’s not used to bleeding.”

Sam rolled his eyes. Someone save him from stubborn know-it-all older brothers!

“He just needs some rest,” Dean insisted. “If you want to sit down and go all ‘kumbaya’ with him, have at it. But _I’m_ going to go get him a T.V. so he can actually take it easy and rest, and we’re going to marathon Star Trek!”

Dean dropped a plate of eggs in front of Sam, which landed with a solid thunk. Pointedly glaring at Sam, Dean grabbed the toast out of the toaster. He set it on a plate next to the jar of peanut butter. Still glaring, he walked out of the room, following the path Cas had taken minutes earlier.

Sam frowned at Dean’s retreating form. He was still worried, but Dean seemed so certain. 

Dean was probably right; he knew Cas better, after all. Maybe Cas would be back on his feet after a few days of rest. Cas was an angel, and he had always bounced back from whatever punches landed on him. Maybe he could shake off being possessed by Lucifer in a way that Sam hadn’t been able to...


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

** _A month later..._ **

“No. Absolutely not,” Dean declared, stomping down the hall of the Bunker.

“Jody says--”

“I don’t care _what_ Jody says,” Dean cut Sam off. “We _just_ got back from a hunt, I don’t care if it’s only 3 hours down the road or that we’re the closest hunters. We’ve been going non-stop for _week_s. We finally got home. I’m tired.”

Dean didn’t have to turn around to know Sam was leveling him with a full on _bitchface_.

“Dean, people are _dying_\--”

The British Men of Letters were a complete pain in the ‘arse’ and their fucking about was getting all the monsters agitated. It was like the lead-up to the Purgatory mess all over again. Less alphas, less angelic civil war, and less soulless-ness, but similar spike in monster activity.

“We can do it tomorrow,” Dean capitulated. “But I’m sleeping in my own damn bed tonight!”

“I’ll let Jody know we’ll be there tomorrow morning,” Sam allowed, then insisted, “_First_ thing.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” He handed Sam the take-out bags. “Go warm up lunch.”

“Isn’t it a little early for lunch?”

“Yeah, but I’m hungry now, so go warm them up. I’ll go get Cas.”

Sam halted as he went to grab the bags, his eyebrows furrowed with his concern. He opened his mouth to spout out more platitudes of how worried he was about Cas, and Dean waved him off. He was tired of having the same damn fight with Sam again and again.

Dean didn’t understand Sam’s doom and gloom. Cas was _fine_. He just needed some more rest and he’d be fine. So what was a few weeks holing up bingeing T.V.? _Dude was tired!_ Cas had more than earned a lifetime of doing nothing but watching T.V. if that was what he wanted, as far as Dean was concerned. 

Sure, the British Men of Letters were snooping around, causing some trouble and stirring up a bunch of monsters. And yeah, they hadn’t been able to spend much time at the Bunker so Cas had been left on his own a bit too much. But there weren’t any Apocalypses happening, no big ‘end of the world’ doomsday scenarios! Besides, they’d been able to ward the Bunker to keep out strangers, and they’d been spreading the word about the British Invasion to Jody, Donna, and the rest of the Hunters they knew. Things were fine. There was no reason Cas had to do anything or go anywhere if he didn’t want to. If he wanted to stay in the Bunker while Sam and Dean went on hunts--(so many damn frigging hunts!)--he could stay in the Bunker.

(At least he was safe here. At least he was _staying_.)

As for the bingeing television all day, what was the big deal? What else was he going to do while Sam and Dean were out? It wasn’t like it was the _only_ thing he did these days. When Sam and Dean had a chance to be at the Bunker, even though Cas didn’t need to eat, he joined them for dinners. If he had a ‘problem’ bingeing T.V., he wouldn’t do that, would he? Dean didn’t think so. And when Dean could watch with him, Cas let Dean pick what to watch and they watched together. Dean was finally able to start showing Cas all the movies and shows that Dean loved. And Cas smiled at Dean’s jokes and listened intently to whatever Dean had to say about the movies. If he wasn’t doing well, would he be having fun with Dean? No, he wouldn’t. Therefore, he was fine, they were fine. It was fine.

Dean knocked on Cas’s door. He waited half a minute before he heard something like a grunt, which he took as permission to let himself in. Sure enough, Cas was sitting up on the bed, his back leaning against the wall, his gaze focused on the television screen. He was still wearing the clothes Dean had given him that first day he’d come back to the Bunker. Cas hadn’t felt like going out to the store yet, and Dean thought he might have realized that Dean’s clothes were much more comfortable than the suit get-up he used to wear all the time.

And even after a couple weeks, it was still fucking hot to see Cas dressed in his clothes.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean greeted.

There was an uncomfortable length of silence before Cas, still staring at the television, mumbled, “Hello.”

Dean frowned. Huh. It did seem to be getting harder to get Cas’s attention.

“Come on, Cas,” Dean cajolled. “Time to let those eyes rest a bit. Come join Sam and me in the kitchen for lunch.”

When Cas didn’t answer or even acknowledge that he had even heard him, Dean added, “Come on. You should join us when you finish the episode you’re on.”

“When I finish the episode,” Cas dutifully, almost robotically, repeated.

Well, that was something at least. He’d give Cas a bit, but he’d come back to drag him out if Cas took too long to join them.

On his way out, Dean spared a glance at the television to see what show had Cas so absorbed.

His blood went cold.

Dean stumbled, backing out of the room. He winced and threw a look over at Cas but he needn’t have bothered; Cas hadn’t noticed. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.

Sam was right. Something was very, _very_ wrong with Cas!

* * *

Dean had just been in the room. Even when Castiel was focused on something else, he could always feel when Dean was near.

He wasn’t in the room now, so he’d come by for something. To tell him something, maybe? Dean always came by his room to say something whenever he and Sam left on a hunt. When they didn’t have a hunt, sometimes Dean would come and sit with Castiel and they would watch something together. Castiel liked when they watched things together. Dean would always explain things and they could talk about what they watched. Dean would laugh at some of Castiel’s observations, and even though Castiel was serious and not trying to make a joke, it was fine because he liked hearing Dean laugh.

He was almost certain it had been a while since Dean had last come in to watch something with him, which usually meant he’d been out on a hunt with Sam. Castiel couldn’t actually recall how long ago it had been. He was losing track of time. That should concern him, shouldn’t it? Did it? He didn’t feel particularly concerned. He didn’t feel particularly much of anything. That made sense. He was an angel after all. What was he thinking about? Oh yes. Dean. He often thought about Dean.

Dean had come by. But he hadn’t stayed. If Dean wasn’t coming in to watch something with him, and he wasn’t stopping by to tell Castiel he was leaving, then Dean would be stopping by to tell Castiel to join Dean and Sam for dinner.

Castiel had no need to eat. Despite the weakened state of his Grace, he was an angel. He didn’t need to eat or sleep. It didn’t exactly taste of molecules anymore, but food had no appeal for him. 

He _did _enjoy sitting with Dean and Sam while they ate. Dean always lit up when Castiel joined them at the table. He and Sam would tell Castiel about their recent hunt, and Dean would happily make dinner. He would excitedly give samples for Castiel to try, and despite his disappointment that Castiel didn’t love the taste, he still kept trying.

Castiel liked those times together. He could almost imagine he belonged. With the Winchesters. With Dean.

That he could be part of their family.

(“_You’re a brother to us, Cas. I want you to know that.” “You’re a brother to us.” “You’re a **brother**.” “Brother.”_)

Castiel picked up the remote to turn the television off. The screen was already blank, the television faintly glowing from being on but having no signal reaching it. He frowned. He didn’t remember turning Netflix off already. He turned off the television and stood up.

He should be happy that Dean had called him a brother. He knew he wasn’t, not like Sam, he would never be as important as Sam. But Dean still considered him important.

(When he had power. When he was useful.)

Castiel stumbled, hitting his elbow on the door frame. A sharp zing of nerves shot up his arm. Hitting a ‘funny bone’ did not feel very funny. 

Not much felt very funny.

(_“You’re a brother to us.”_)

...He didn’t want to be a brother.

Dean and Sam’s voices carried down the hall, not loud enough for a human to hear but Castiel was close enough to the kitchen to start making out their conversation, muddled until Sam’s voice rose louder with an exclamation.

“You can’t be serious! We can’t take Cas with us on the hunt!”

“HE CAN’T STAY HERE!” Dean roared back.

The ground opened up, he was falling. Wind roaring in his ears, blocking all other sounds. His vision narrowed to nothing. Falling and falling. He was only stopped from collapsing completely by the wall behind him.

He couldn’t breathe. His chest was constricted. He was having a heart attack. No, his coronary arteries weren’t blocked, it couldn’t be a heart attack. But why did he have such piercing pain?

Dean was going to tell him to leave the Bunker again. He was too useless, unable to help them on hunts. He failed to protect Sam. Dean was going to tell him to leave.

He couldn’t… he couldn’t sit in front of Dean while Dean told him to leave. He couldn’t do it again. He knew how much it hurt. He knew how much it broke him.

To hear it again, it would destroy him.

He needed to leave. Now. Before Dean could tell him to leave. Before Dean _would_ tell him to leave.

Castiel fled down the hall. It wasn’t until he’d reached the steps to the balcony in the map room that he paused. He had no money, he had no resources. He had nothing, absolutely nothing.

His clothes… they were Dean’s. In the weeks since his had been ruined, he hadn’t gotten his own. Even though he knew Dean was unhappy that he kept wearing his clothes, he just couldn’t make himself get up and go out to a store to purchase his own. It had been too much effort.

(And a selfish, horrible part of him _didn’t_ want to get other clothes, because these were Dean’s, and he could pretend they still held Dean’s scent, though that had faded weeks ago. When he could let himself ignore the fact that his continued wearing of Dean’s clothes bothered Dean, Castiel could almost let himself enjoy the feeling of being wrapped up in something of Dean’s.)

That was terrible of him. Selfish and ‘creepy’. Dean wouldn’t appreciate Castiel having those feelings.

He should return Dean’s clothes to him, but he couldn’t go out naked. He’d have to continue to impose on Dean and keep his clothes for the time being. He would get his own clothing as soon as he could so he could return Dean’s to him.

He climbed the stairs, the metal grill rough on his bare feet.

Wait. He had no coat or shoes on his feet. He’d even left the new phone Dean and Sam had given him in his room. 

It didn’t matter, he could go without a coat and shoes, without the phone. They weren’t necessary. He was looking for excuses to ‘drag his chain’. He didn’t want to leave.

He pushed on, his bare feet padding down the long, dark hall to the front door.

Where would he go? He couldn’t go back up to Heaven. His brothers and sisters who remained had made it very clear he was no longer welcome, and even Hannah had agreed to his imprisonment and torture, and now she was dead. The last time he’d been to Heaven, the only reason they hadn’t killed him on sight was because Lucifer was in his vessel and none of the rest of the angels had the power to combat an archangel. And even if that wasn’t the case, even if his family in Heaven would welcome his return, it was no longer his home.

He ran his hand against the cement wall.

Home was with Dean. His family was Dean and Sam.

...But they didn’t feel the same.

He dropped his hand.

Did he go back to the Gas ‘n Sip? Was that to be his life? It had been an honest one, with a quiet dignity, but it was lonely, so very lonely. He wanted to help others. To save people. But he couldn’t hunt the way Dean and Sam did. He couldn’t heal anyone. He couldn’t even heal himself. What could he do? 

His steps faltered just in front of the Bunker door.

What purpose could he have without Dean?

None.

He had nothing.

Dean didn’t need him. Dean didn’t want him.

Castiel opened the heavy Bunker door and went outside.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

“So Jody sent me the info she had on the case,” Sam started without any preamble as soon as Dean entered the kitchen. He had his laptop on the table in front of him, and he was reading whatever it was that Jody had sent them. “It looks like--What’s wrong?” Sam changed direction as he registered the expression on Dean’s face.

“You were right,” Dean told him. “Cas isn’t okay.”

Sam’s brows furrowed with concern. “What happened?”

Though his tone was mildly concerned rather than accusing, Dean knew Sam meant ‘what happened?’ as in ‘what happened_ in_ _addition_ to _all the other things _Sam had been pointing out for weeks that Dean had been ignoring’, of course.

The lack of eating and sleeping… 

_“He’s an angel, he doesn’t need to eat or sleep.”_

_“He’s not healing, which means his Grace is low, which means he _does_ need to eat and sleep.”_

_“He’ll eat if he feels like it.”_

Dean had shrugged off Sam’s concern.

Dean _had_ tried to feed Cas, but Cas said he couldn’t taste things, so clearly he was angel enough not to need to eat.

Holing up in his room…

_“He’s watching _all_ of Star Trek. Of _course_ he’s gonna be in his room for days at a time!”_

He kept ignoring it. He wanted Cas to be fine. After everything that had happened to Cas, to them, he wanted everything to be okay now. He downplayed all the signs and warnings, pretended as if Cas was getting better. And it wasn’t like they’d been around much even if he hadn’t been. But Sam had been right all along; Cas wasn’t fine.

Sam was kindly not saying ‘I told you so’. Not that Dean didn’t deserve it, but he couldn’t deal with that right now, which Sam seemed to realize.

Dean grabbed two beers. He placed one in front of Sam and took a chug from his as he sat down. “You know how hyper-focused he gets when he’s watching stuff on his own?”

Sam nodded. It had been another point Sam had been concerned about: how Cas would tune out everything around him.

“Well, he was hyperfocusing on the T.V., but he wasn’t actually _watching_ it. Netflix had done its ‘are you still watching?’ and auto-shut off and he hadn’t noticed. He was still watching as if there was something to watch on the screen.” Dean slumped down onto the seat across the table from Sam, his head in his hands. “He’s hyper-fixated on that damn television but he didn’t even _notice_.”

“Wait. You mean the screen was blank?”

“Yeah.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose up practically to his hairline. “And he was still watching it?”

“Yahtzee.”

“Shit.”

Dean took another sip of his beer. “So what are we going to do?”

“He needs help.”

“Yeah, genius. I know that. But what do we _do_?”

“No, I mean like _real _help. Professional help.”

“Like a _shrink_? Oh yeah, because angel shrinks are a dime a dozen! I can see it now: ‘So why are you here?’ ‘Oh, my life really fell apart after I fell from Heaven and I’m feeling a bit run down after letting Lucifer possess me so I could stop God’s sister from destroying the universe’. Yeah, that’ll go over well.”

“There’s gotta be some psychiatrists that know about the supernatural. It might take some time to find one, but there has to be someone. He needs more help than _we _can do.”

Yeah, okay, Sam had a point. What did they know about good mental health? They drank and repressed and almost ended the world multiple times. Cas _did_ need help, and Dean and Sam hadn’t been able to do enough for him.

“We can talk to Jody and Donna to see if they’ve got any ideas,” Sam said. “They’ve been building on Bobby’s old network, and even if they don’t know someone, they might know someone who knows someone. You know? We can swing by Jody’s place after we finish the hunt.”

“We’ll have to bring Cas with us,” Dean decided.

“What?” Sam blinked.

“Tomorrow. We’ll have to bring Cas with us.”

Sam looked at Dean scandalized. “You can’t be serious! We can’t take Cas with us on the hunt!”

“He can’t stay here!” Dean roared back. It was his fault that he’d been ignoring the signs that Cas wasn’t all right, and Cas had gotten worse, but now that Dean realized, he wasn’t going to ignore it anymore. He wasn’t going to leave Cas to hide and fade away to nothing. “I’m not saying he should hunt with us, but we can bring him _with _us. So he’s not stuck here alone getting worse.”

“He’s going to want to help,” Sam pointed out. “And that isn’t a good idea with his current state. But if we _don’t_ let him help, he’s going to feel even worse.”

“Oh, so now _you’re _a psychiatrist?”

Sam gave Dean a flat look.

Dean threw his hands up in frustration. “Got any bright ideas then of what to do?”

Sam put up his hands in a consoling gesture. “You’re right, we shouldn’t leave him alone. We could bring him over to visit with Jody and the girls? And Jody might have a better idea of how to help him--”

“Oh, sure, right,” Dean scoffed. “That’s a great idea. He’s going to feel so much better when we dump him on someone else’s doorstep to deal with. ‘Cuz that went over so well when we left him comatose with _Meg_ to watch him. That was a real stand-out moment on our part.”

“Don’t pin that on _me_! That was _your_ idea. And it’s not like we had a lot of options at the time with the Leviathan hunting us and pinning a huge murder spree on us! But this isn’t the same situation and Jody isn’t Meg!”

“You’re right, it’s _not_ the same situation. We’re not running for our lives, not trying to stop an Apocalypse or anything. We don’t have to abandon him right now.”

“I’m not--” Sam huffed out an exhale. “Fine. We can’t leave him here, we shouldn’t take him with us, and you don’t want to bring him to Jody’s. What can we do for him?”

Dean sighed with defeat. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to help him.”

Sam put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Dean. We’ll figure it out.”

“Sure,” Dean muttered.

“Why don’t we wait until Cas comes out, and we can talk about this _with_ him.”

Which would be a great plan if Dean had any idea what they were going to _say_. 

* * *

Dean threw the plate into the garbage.

“What was that for?” Sam looked up from his laptop with a disapproving frown.

And yeah, okay, he might have thrown it a tad too forcefully.

“It’s a congealed mess. No way Cas would want to eat that even if he did want to eat that.”

He’d wanted something _good_ for Cas. Something that would make Cas smile when he _finally_ came out of his room. Something to lighten up the talk they were going to have to have.

They still had bupkis on what to do about Cas, which was assuming Cas was ever going to fucking _leave_ his room and join them like Dean had asked him to do _hours_ ago. Hell, Cas wasn’t even _responding_ anymore when Dean knocked on his door.

With the meal he’d made for Cas now in the garbage, Dean didn’t want to go to Cas’s room empty-handed. Time for the old stand-by. Time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

There was still grape jelly in the jar in the fridge but he pulled down a small jar he had hidden behind the oregano. _Fraises charlottle a la rose_. Stupidly French and ridiculously expensive for a stupidly small jar that was essentially just strawberry jelly ‘with roses’ in it, but it was different and fancy, and Dean thought Cas might like it. Cuz Cas was an angel and he deserved fancy shit and it wasn’t like Dean could buy him really fancy shit but he could do something stupid like spend a bit too much money on a ridiculously expensive tiny jar of French strawberry jelly.

He tried to take the jar out discreetly, because he just _knew_ how many teasing and _knowing_ looks Sam would send his way. He used his body to block Sam’s view of what he was doing while he made up the sandwich. He thought he’d been successful until he turned around and saw Sam’s _knowing_ smirk. Fuck.

“Shut up,” Dean barked.

“What?” Sam asked, faux innocently. The little shit.

Dean carried the plate out of the kitchen, down the hall, and to Cas’s room. He knocked on the door, and wasn’t surprised that there was still no answer, like there hadn’t been for the last half dozen times he’d knocked. This time Dean wasn’t going to take no answer as an answer. He _was_ going to talk to Cas, damn it!

“Come on, Cas. I’ve got a sandwich for you. It’s got a new type of jelly. You’re gonna wanna try this.”

Still nothing.

Dean pounded on the door again. “Come on, Cas!”

Nada.

“Fucking fine, I’m coming in anyway!” Dean declared. He waited another half minute and when he heard not a peep, he opened the door.

The room was dark, missing even the blue glow of the blank television. Dean stepped in, setting the plate on the table by the door while he looked around. The bed was empty, the blankets were mildly rumpled--from Cas sitting on top of them--and cold.

Cas wasn’t in the room. Cas hadn’t been in the room for a while.

“Fuck.”

Where the hell had Cas gone? He never left his room these days unless Sam or Dean dragged him out, and now that Dean realized Cas needed help, he took off wandering?

“Sam!” Dean bellowed.

It took a minute for Sam to thunder over. “What’s wrong--”

“Cas has apparently gone on a walk-about.”

“What?”

“Cas is gone!” Dean yelled.

“Where has he gone?”

“I don’t know!”

“He can’t have gone far,” Sam said, his tone meant to be soothing, but Dean wasn’t having it.

It had been a couple hours. So yeah, he could have.

“I’ll check this floor, you check the next, and we’ll see if we can’t find where he’s wandered off,” Sam suggested.

With Sam running off in one direction, Dean searched the rooms in the other. The showers, the gym, various storerooms. The garage. Hell, Dean even checked his own room. Complete strike out.

“Dean!” Sam called from somewhere towards the front of the Bunker.

It took Dean a little bit to follow the sound of Sam’s voice to find him in the map room. Sam looked down at Dean from up on the balcony, his expression grim.

“The front door is open,” Sam said.

“The British…?”

Sam shook his head.

Of course it wasn’t them; none of their wards had tripped. Which meant…

“Fuck. He heard us talking and left,” Dean realized.

“He seems to have left at the very least.”

“He doesn’t move out of his room for weeks and now all of a sudden he’s taken it into his head to go picking flowers? I don’t think so.”

“Okay, well, let me grab my laptop. We’ll see if we can’t track his phone, his credit cards…”

As Sam went back towards the kitchen, Dean followed a hunch and went back to Cas’s room. 

“Motherfucker,” Dean swore.

Sure enough, Cas’s wallet and new phone were still on his bedside table.

He grabbed them and found Sam had moved to the library, already searching for any pings on Cas’s cell phone.

“Don’t bother,” Dean told him, dumping the wallet and phone onto the table next to him. “He either left in a daze, or he didn’t want to be found.”

Dean wasn’t sure which was the worse option of those.

“Are you just letting him go?” Sam asked.

“Of course not.” He held up his keys. “He may have a half day on us, but he’s walking. Take any of the other cars in the garage. I’ll go left, you go right and check in town.”

“You want _me_ to check out the town?”

“My gut says that’s not where he went, but I need you to double-check it. Hit the bus station first.”

Sam nodded, getting up. “All right, Dean. We’ll find him.”

“Damn right we will.”

* * *

It was almost anti-climatic; after the frantic search around the Bunker, hours searching down the roads in and around town, and just about losing hope of finding him before it got too dark, Dean rounded a corner of a random nothing road and there was Cas, walking on the side of the road about a quarter of a mile further ahead. Even at that distance, with the fading light of dusk, with Cas missing his familiar trenchcoat and with his back to Dean, there was no doubt that the figure walking on the side of the road was Cas. There was something about the way he moved, or the presence around him, or something; Dean _knew _it was Cas.

Cas had to have heard the rumble of the Impala pulling up behind him, but he didn’t slow or stop. The anxiety clutching Dean’s heart wasn’t lessening even though Cas had finally been found.

“Cas!” Dean called as he ran around the Impala to get in front of Cas. He had to put both hands onto Cas’s shoulders to physically stop him. “What the Hell, man?! Why’d you leave?”

Cas kept his head down and slightly to the side, neither looking at Dean or answering him. 

Fuck, Cas looked pretty rough. His clothing was dirty and rumbled, his hair was a mess, and it looked like he had a fresh scratch on his forehead and the start of a bruise on his chin. How the hell did he get so banged up and dirty already? He’d only been out here since lunchtime! Had he fallen? Got hit by a car?! Gotten mugged or jumped by some monsters? And, fuck, was he barefoot?! Dean didn’t like the look of what he could see of Cas’s feet.

“Geez, Cas, you look like Hell,” Dean said. “What happened to you?”

Cas still didn’t answer, and considering the unfocused look in his eyes, Dean wasn’t sure if he was even hearing him.

Dean had thought finding Cas would ease the terror gripping his chest, but he had Cas in front of him now and he was more afraid than he was before. He searched Cas’s face in vain for something, anything. To get his Cas back. Fuck, it was like when he’d stood in front of ‘Emmanuel’ and there’d been no recognition in Cas’s eyes. At least as ‘Emmanuel’ he’d been alive, at least he’d been okay. Cas might be alive now, but he was _not_ okay!

“I’m sorry that I haven’t been here enough for you, Cas. I thought… I thought you just needed some rest and quiet and you’d be fine. I ignored all the signs that you weren’t okay. But I promise… I promise I’m here for you. Let’s get back to the Bunker. We can figure this out. Together.”

Nothing. Not even a blink. Fuck, he’d just poured his heart out to Cas and it was like shouting it out into void for all the reaction he got.

“I’m right here, Cas!” Dean yelled, tightening his grip on Cas’s shoulders. He went face to face with Cas, demanding that Cas look at him. “Whatever it is, we can face it together! I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere! Why can’t you face me?”

Cas wouldn’t--_couldn’t_\--even look at him!

“Come on, Cas. _I need you_ to look at me!”

“Dean?” Cas questioned. His eyes found Dean’s and his pupils dilated as his eyes finally focused.

Dean’s face broke out in a huge, relieved grin. “Hey there, buddy. Thought I lost you there for a sec.”

“What…? Where…?”

“You started a game of hide-and-seek without telling us,” Dean quipped.

Cas squinted his eyes and tilted his head in bewilderment. Dean grinned wider. There he was, there was Cas. He was going to be okay now.

“Come on, Cas, let’s get back.”

Dean took a few steps back to the car, but Cas didn’t budge. Dean turned back to him.

“Cas?”

“I’m sorry I took them without asking you.”

Dean’s blood went cold. “...What?”

“I didn’t have anything else. I promise I’ll give them back...”

“What’s wrong? What are you talking about?”

“...I’ll wash them, I promise.”

“Wash what?” Dean repeated, not quite sure he’d heard Cas correctly. 

“I’ll wash and mend them before I return them--”

“What?” Nothing Cas was saying made any sense! 

“I didn’t have anything else to wear but I promise I’ll give them back…”

“The clothes?!” Dean bit out incredulously as he figured it out. “Cas, I don’t _care_ about the clothes!”

“You said,” Cas mumbled, and Dean had to lean forward again to hear what he was saying, “You said it was a favorite. This shirt. And I’ve been wearing it and not giving it back. I didn’t have anything else to wear--”

He didn’t have anything else to wear because Dean _destroyed _his clothes!

“--But I promise, as soon as I can, I will return these to you. And I’ll clean and mend them first--”

“I don’t care about the clothes!”

“Yes you do,” Cas insisted.

While Dean was happy for a sign that Cas was hearing and responding to what he said, everything else about this conversation was infuriatingly stupid. Including his immediate retort, “No, I don’t!”

“When you see me, you frown and look away,” Cas mumbled.

“That’s not--! That’s not because I’m angry you’re wearing my clothes.” Just the opposite in fact. Not that he could tell his platonic angel of the lord best friend that seeing him in his clothes made him fucking horny. That was a whole conversation he did _not_ want to have, nor was this the right time to have it.

“I knew it was wrong to take them. I was going to send them back to you. Soon. I was going to clean and mend them. I promise.”

“Cas!” Dean shouted to get through Cas’s constant stream. “I. Don’t. CARE. About. The. Clothes. They’re _yours_ for however long you want them. Keep them, burn them, they are yours to do whatever you want with them.”

“They were your favorite,” Cas stubbornly insisted.

“They were,” Dean agreed. “That’s _why_ I gave them to _you_. I liked them so I thought--_hoped_\--you would too. And since you kept wearing them I figured you did. If you don’t, we can get you something else. Whatever you want, Cas.”

As long as Cas didn’t want the clothes Dean had ruined, Dean’s guilt helpfully supplied.

“If you want something else to wear, you can pick whatever you want out of my closet. Or we can go out shopping. Whatever you want.”

Dean put a hand on Cas’s shoulder and pulled him towards the Impala. “Come on, Cas, let’s head home”

Cas frowned and looked very uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think I’d be...allowed… back up in Heaven.”

“Heaven?” Dean stomach dropped. Even after all this time, after everything they’d done, Cas still considered Heaven his home. Of course he did. He was an angel. “I… I meant… we should head back to the Bunker.”

“Oh. I thought… I thought you meant…”

“Yeah, no. I meant the Bunker.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.”

But Cas still didn’t move.

“Please, Dean. I’d rather just do this here.”

“Do what?”

“Have you tell me to leave.”

Why the Hell would Cas think Dean would _want_ him to leave?! “I don’t want you to leave!”

“You said I couldn’t stay.”

“When the Hell did I say that?!”

“When you were talking to Sam in the kitchen.”

Fucking Hell. Of _course_ Cas would have heard one tiny part of a much larger conversation and THAT would be the one part he heard and focused on.

Dean threw up his hands. “I meant you couldn’t stay in your room all the time!”

“It’s okay, Dean. I understand.” Cas kept his head down, his expression unchanged. He clearly didn’t get it.

“Yeah, well, I _don’t_.” Dean crossed his arms, frowning petulantly.

“I don’t have much power anymore. And I failed to protect Sam.”

“Cas, I’m not going to kick you out for that!”

Cas shook his head. “I know I’m not very useful. Without my Grace.”

“I don’t care if you have your mojo or not!”

Dean could see Cas turning back in on himself. His shoulders hunched, his head tilted down so he was staring off at the ground, and his mouth thinned to a narrow line. It was like Dean had picked the wrong dialogue option but he had no fucking clue why Cas was shutting down. 

Why would Cas think Dean would kick him out for not having his powers? It’s not like…

Oh.

Oh fuck.

Dean was the worst. He got it. Hearing what he thought was Dean kicking him out, it brought up all the baggage from getting kicked out the first time. Cas might have _forgiven_ him for that mess back when he was human and Dean had been trying to play nice with Gadreel to save Sam, but Dean had still _hurt_ Cas very badly, and that kind of pain couldn’t be _forgotten_ so easily. Buried underneath everything else, Dean hadn’t realized that pain still remained. That fear was still there.

And Dean definitely hadn’t done enough to help Cas get over it.

“That--that wasn’t because you didn’t have any power, Cas. You _know_ that. It was just… bad timing, bad situation all around.”

“You had to save Sam.”

“Yeah, I did. But I’m sorry I didn’t do enough for you and that I was too into my own shit afterwards to make it up to you. But this time’s different. I’m not going to kick you out. Never again. And… And if Heaven doesn’t want you, well, screw them. The Bunker is _your_ home, too. For as long as you want it. You’re family.”

“Like… a ‘brother’?” Cas asked.

“Y-yeah. O-of course.”

Well, except for the fact that Dean wanted to wrap Cas’s meaty thighs around his waist and plow him up a wall. But sure. Like a brother.

“Come on, Cas. Let’s go _home_.”

Cas nodded, but his eyes were still downcast and he seemed more resigned than happy. Dean didn’t know what else he could say to make things better for Cas, but at least Cas was letting Dean lead him to the car.

Dean opened the passenger door and guided Cas to sit down. With Cas sitting, it was Dean’s first chance to really get a look at the soles of his feet and just how torn up they had gotten. Shimmers of light amongst the blood and gravel indicated there were slivers of glass mixed in, the likely culprit for how his feet had gotten messed up so badly in the first place.

Honestly, Dean couldn’t see how Cas was still walking, let alone doing so without any indication of the pain he had to be feeling. Stupid stubborn angels!

Cas pulled his feet out of Dean’s hands and brought them into the car. Dean straightened up and shut the car door.

As he walked around the back of the car, he pulled out his phone and called Sam. “I have him. Get back to the Bunker, and get the med kit out. Also the dish pan. Fill it with hot water and epsom salt. I think we still have some around. Get the stuff ready then meet us in the garage. I’m going to need your help moving him to the kitchen.”

Sam must have picked up on Dean’s curt tone since he didn’t argue or try to get more details. “Got it,” was all he said.

Dean hung up the phone and slipped it back in his pocket before getting behind the wheel.

He was going to take Cas home and find some way to show Cas that it was his home too, and that he was never going to be asked to leave again. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

“Cas. You’re bleeding out all over the floor,” Dean said. “At least let me get the fucking glass shards out of your foot!”

But it made no difference how much Dean pointed out that Cas was hurt, Cas kept pulling his feet out of Dean’s hands.

When they’d pulled into the Bunker’s garage, Sam had met them there with an old Men of Letters wheelchair he’d found somewhere in one of the storage rooms. From there, they had rolled Cas into the kitchen. Cas remained silent the whole time, even as they sat him down on one of the chairs, rolled up his pants, and placed his feet into the pan of hot water Sam had prepared. If anything, Dean would have thought Cas might have balked at the sting of hot water on his torn up feet, but nada, not so much as a flinch. Not a word had been said when Dean had plunked down on his knees in front of Cas, but whoo boy, did he suddenly become a fussy-ass bitch as soon as Dean had reached for a foot.

“I know it hurts, but I promise to be as gentle as I can,” Dean growled, anything but gently. It was like dealing with a skittish animal, but Dean had never been an animal person. (Except the time he’d been a dog.) “It’s going to feel better when it’s cleaned up. So. Stop. Squirming!”

Dean thought he had an iron grip on Cas’s foot, but Cas pulled out of his hands again, splashing soapy water across Dean’s lap and the floor around him. His knees were soaked.

He felt ridiculous. Kneeling on the wet floor, Sam hovering somewhere behind him, while Cas kicked up a fuss like a toddler who didn’t want a bath.

“Cas, I… I know what it’s like. To take _pain_ as… as if you’re feeling _something_. To want to hold on to it, as a self p-punishment,” Dean admitted. “But that’s not the right way. You can’t… you can’t just ignore your body.”

Cas looked down sadly at Dean. Tentatively, hoping eye contact meant understanding, Dean reached his hand forward, but Cas jerked his foot away.

Mother-fucking what the hell?!

Sam tapped Dean on the shoulder, and jerked his head in an upward nod. Dean stood up and let Sam take his spot. If Cas wasn’t going to let Dean touch his feet, he didn’t know what Sam thought he could do, but he was welcome to try, because Dean’s next option was to grab his handcuffs!

Sam folded himself down onto the wet floor so he was kneeling in front of Cas. He picked up the washcloth Dean had left on the edge of the dishpan, but otherwise he didn’t make a move for Cas’s foot. Cas eyed him warily.

Dean pursed his lips and tapped his foot impatiently as Sam and Cas just looked at each other.

“Cas,” Sam said, then started again. “Castiel. You betrayed Dean and I, betrayed your allies and companions, and killed innocent people in your quest to open up Purgatory and to absorb Purgatory’s souls into yourself. When you did, drunk on its power, you murdered countless more. And in the end you unleashed the Leviathan into the world, and they proceeded to murder, eat, and harm even more innocent people.”

Dean’s jaw dropped open. He was too stunned to even make a sound. 

Wha--what the hell?!

Cas was depressed as shit, running away from them barefoot and in a daze because he was certain Dean and Sam were going to kick him out for being useless, and Sam brings up _that_?! Yeah, it had been a really bad scene, but it was in the past! Cas was doing his best to make up for that. Why the hell was Sam bringing it up, and doing so _now_ of all times?!

Cas’s eyes were all wide and watery, just as shocked by Sam bringing up his worst hits as Dean was. Dean was seconds away from storming across the room, grabbing Sam and throwing him against the wall and punching him in his big fat stupid mouth.

Sam didn’t pay him any attention, continuing his list of Cas’s mistakes. “You allowed Lucifer to possess you, releasing him from the cage I had given my life to put him back into, and let him loose once more into the world, where he was able to kill and harm others.”

Cas whimpered.

Sam continued relentlessly, “You left my soul to be tortured by Lucifer for over a century in Hell and lied about your involvement, so neither Dean or I knew what had happened for over a year. And when we figured out your plan for Purgatory and opposed it, you took down the mental wall Death had created to protect my mind from my Hell memories, causing my mind to slowly break down and for me to nearly die.”

Cas tried to pull away but Sam wouldn’t let him, his hand a sudden vise on Cas’s ankle.

“You did that, Cas. You did all of that.”

Sam locked eyes onto Cas’s like a steel rod held them together.

“And I forgive you.”

Tears started flowing down Cas’s cheeks, silent and steady.

“I forgive you, Castiel.”

Dean watched transfixed as Sam picked up Cas’s foot, the water in the dishpan opaque red. Drops ran down Cas’s foot--(Blood. Water. Was there even a difference anymore?)--and dripped into the dishpan with staccato _blips_.

As Sam gently cleaned Cas’s right foot, he spoke softly, “_Indulgéntiam tibi tríbuat et pacem, et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo suspensionis et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges. Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis._”

Latin. Dean quickly translated it in his head, ‘May God give you pardon and peace, and by his authority I absolve you from every bond of the suspension and interdict, so as much as I can, and your needs require. Thereupon, I absolve you from your sins.’

Absolution.

Of. Fucking. Course.

Sam wasn’t being a dick by spouting off about Cas’s biggest mistakes; for absolution, he had to list off the sins to be forgiven. It was part of the whole ritual. Sometimes one had to bleed the poison out, and the weight on Cas’s shoulders seemed lighter now, so clearly this was helping. (Though why couldn’t they just skip that part and focus on the ‘I forgive you’ and ‘you’re absolved’ parts?)

Now it made sense why Cas got all cagey when Dean was pawing at his feet. Foot washing was a significant part of absolution rituals, and beyond that, it could be a very intimate activity. Asking an angel to let Dean wash his feet was probably as forward as asking if he could unzip his pants and blow him!

Even though he had only washed and bandaged one of Cas’s feet, Sam unfolded his long legs and stood up. He stepped back and looked over at Dean. He held out the washcloth for Dean to take.

He was probably right; just hearing Sam absolve and forgive his ‘sins’ wasn’t going to be enough for Cas. It was Dean’s turn to perform the rite.

With trepidation, Dean stepped back in front of Cas. A few minutes ago he’d plopped himself down without hestation, but what had been a simple act was now something a whole fucking lot bigger. And it _terrified_ Dean.

He stood frozen, his legs locked, unwilling to move so he could kneel down again. Cas was looking up at him, his eyes wide and watery. Dean couldn’t take his eyes off of him. He stared at Cas; Cas stared at him. It was the first time in weeks that not only did Cas meet Dean’s eyes, but Dean had actual sustained eye contact from him. Dean couldn’t get enough.

Sam cleared his throat. “So, um. I should go get… yeah.”

Dean heard Sam shuffle out of the room and mutter, “Like they even know I’m here anyway.”

The door they usually never closed shut behind Sam with a definitive click.

“Dean.” 

Cas spoke barely above a whisper, and he only said Dean’s name, but it felt like permission.

Dean lowered himself down onto his knees.

There was no way he was going to repeat all the same shit Sam had already said. Sam had said it once already, and he knew it had hurt Cas to hear it. That was more than enough. 

“So, um, ditto on all what Sam said,” Dean said, clearing his throat to start.

That was a great start, but what should he say next? It felt backwards, drubbing on Cas all his sins when Dean had done so much worse. Dean should be the one begging Cas to forgive _him_! What sins had Cas committed to Dean? Nothing Dean hadn’t already forgiven him. But he’d never actually told Cas that, had he? He’d always figured Cas could figure it out, but from Cas’s downward spiral of depression, not speaking up _hadn’t _been enough. He had to spell it out for Cas.

So what had Cas done to hurt him? He kept leaving. That was it, wasn’t it? That’s what Cas had done that really hurt Dean. That _still _hurt him. Cas never _stayed_.

“A-after Stull… Sam was gone. I was alone. I was h-hurting.” Fuck that was hard to admit outloud. “And you left me like that. You didn’t even say goodbye, you just _left_. You went off and did all this shit on your own, and messed it all up. I could have _helped_. But you went to _Crowley_ instead… instead of _me_.”

“I thought you were happy,” Cas whispered.

Dean looked up, surprised. With everything Sam had said, Cas hadn’t spoken a word. In fact, other than saying Dean’s name just now, he hadn’t said _anything _since Dean had gotten him in the car.

“Happy?! I thought Sam was dead! You left me for a year thinking my brother was dead!”

“I thought you were happy. You went to that woman. You were having a life of peace. Like you always wanted.”

“Yeah, well, if you’d _talked_ to me, you’d have learned I had anything but peace.”

“I’m sorry.”

Accepting the apology with a nod of his head, Dean continued, “And then everything was falling apart. Sam was a mess, we had Leviathan messing up our lives, and you went off and died. Except you hadn’t died, you m-married some random woman. No, that’s... Fuck. I know. You had no memories, you didn’t know. It wasn’t your fault. But it still...I needed you. And you weren’t there.”

“Dean.”

Dean was getting into it now. He kept going, “And you… and you _ditched _me without a word when we got into Purgatory. I turned around and you were _gone_. I didn’t know what happened to you! And you heard me praying for you, every day, asking you to come back, telling you how much I--you know. And I kept telling you how I was still looking for you, every day, for that entire year. And you kept running away.”

“I thought-- The Leviathan...”

“I know, I know. You were trying to keep away so the Leviathan would chase after you, not me. But I didn’t want you to do that, Cas. I spent a _year _not knowing what had happened to you. If you were even alive. You could hear my prayers to know I was okay, but I didn’t even have that. I had nothing.”

Cas looked distraught, like maybe he was finally understanding what he’d done to Dean.

“And when you got the angel tablet, even though we had been instrumental in helping you get it, you just poofed off! We could have _helped_ you but you didn’t _trust_ m-us. You left, and we had to deal with Crowley--and Sam dying over those trials--all on our own. We could have… we could have helped each other. But it’s like, you don’t trust m-us on the big stuff. Despite most of the other angels’ actively hunting you to kill you, and the mess of what happened last time, you went off and built another angel army! I know I wasn’t… The Mark of Cain, I… Yeah. I get it. But you didn’t even talk to me before you jumped back into Heaven’s politics. Sam and I could have helped you. We could have done things _together_.”

It was actually making Dean feel better, getting all of this off his chest. Maybe there was something to this absolution thing. He hadn’t realized how much anger and hurt he’d been clinging to until he had the chance to tell Cas how much his actions had hurt him. He still felt like it should be the other way around, him begging Cas to forgive him, but Cas needed him to do this.

“So yeah. That’s it. That’s what you did wrong. And I forgive you.”

Cas frowned.

What the hell? Why the hell wasn’t that good enough? When Sam said all that big shit, it was fine, but Dean focusing on just what Cas had done to him wasn’t right?

“But there’s more that I did to you--”

“And all the stuff Sam said,” Dean repeated. “I said that. I don’t need to go all over that again, do I?”

“But what about… when I _hurt_ you… I almost _killed_ you…”

“What?”

“In Lucifer’s crypt--”

“_THAT_?! You’re hung up on _that?_”

From his look, Cas clearly was.

“You were, like, mind-controlled by that Naomi-chick, weren’t you? That wasn’t you.”

Cas still looked unsatisfied.

“You were being mind-controlled. If you’re hung up on that, I did even worse to you and I wasn’t mind-controlled!” Dean insisted.

“But I almost killed you again--”

“When?” Dean demanded.

“In Smith Center.”

“In Smith--Oh! When you were under Rowena’s attack dog spell?! Come on, man! You were under mind control for that one too! Cas, I almost killed you in a room just down the hall. _I almost killed you_. And that wasn’t mind control. It was _me_.”

“You were under the control of a very powerful curse. The Mark of Cain, the Darkness…”

“The Mark of Cain that I _chose _to take on. What I did, that’s on me.”

“Dean.”

“I don’t know why we’re doing this!”

Cas reared back, his eyes wide, hurt splashed across his face.

Fuck. “No. I mean…. Not that. If you need a ceremony to hear that I forgive you because I’m a dumbass who hasn’t done enough to let you know that, then I’ll shout it from the rooftops. I’ll kneel down in front of you--” Dean waved his hands at his current position “--Whatever you need to hear to know that I forgive you, I’ll do it for you. But I just… Why have a whole ceremony harping on your wrongs when I’ve done so much worse to you?”

“You haven’t--”

“Bullshit. I haven’t been there enough for you. After everything you’ve done for. Hell, man. You _Fell_ because of me.”

“I Fell because it was the right thing to do. I don’t regret it.”

“Maybe, but everything’s gone wrong for you since you met me.”

“That’s not true. Knowing you has been the best part of my life.”

“Come on, Cas. You’ve known me for like a hot second of your thousands--”

“Millions,” Cas corrected.

“--Millions of years of life. Since you met me, you Fell. You died. Multiple times! The pain you’ve suffered… So much of it has been _my_ fault.”

“Since meeting you, I have experienced the lowest of lows. But I’ve also experienced the highest of highs. I wouldn’t change anything.”

“You can’t honestly say it’s all be worth it… I-I left you with _Meg_ to watch you after you healed Sam!”

“I forgive you. It had been my fault Sam was in that situation and you were cleaning up _my_ mess.”

“Yeah, well, I forgive you for that. You’d been hopped up on souls and not in your right mind. As soon as you came back to yourself you tried to fix it. Besides, Death said that the wall in Sam’s mind had been likely to fail, so it might have come down anyway. I didn’t… I didn’t try to understand what you were going through. Facing Raphael and leading a civil war in Heaven. I was focused only on myself, and _my_ problems. I took you for granted.”

“I forgive you. I didn’t want to burden you with my problems. I tried to keep the war away from you. I didn’t like who I had to be in that fight.”

“You were doing the best you could in a bad situation. I get that now. I forgive you. Cas, I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t notice how bad things had gotten for you. After everything we’d gone through, I wanted so badly for everything to be all right now. For _you_ to be all right. I wasn’t paying enough attention to whether you actually were or not. And I’m sorry for that. I want you to know I don’t need you to be all right. And I certainly don’t want you to pretend you are when you’re not. I need… _want_ you to let me know, to let me help you when you’re not.”

From there they traded sins back and forth. For Dean it was his failures, the times he disappointed his father and brother, the lives he took and the lives he hadn’t been able to save, the times he hadn’t been there for Cas. With Cas, it was things Dean knew about the past few years, some he hadn’t known but suspected--Cas really had killed Balthazar!--and a bunch of things from his millions of years of life that Dean didn’t understand, but he listened to it all.

There was a catharsis to letting it all out, to having his wrongs _heard _and _acknowledged_, for being forgiven, and for forgiving Cas for his wrongs. To letting the pain and hurt _go_.

“Cas, when we first met… you saw what I had become. You saw what I did.”

Cas nodded his head in acknowledgement. Dean might not remember their meeting in Hell, but they both knew Cas remembered it all perfectly.

“I broke. I picked up the razor and I cut into those people. And I _liked_ it. No matter what good I might do in my life, Cas, nothing will ever erase what I’ve done.”

“Even after all these years, you still don’t believe you deserved to be saved.” Cas reached down and placed his palm along Dean’s face. He ran his thumb across Dean’s cheek and wiped away the tears. “This fault is not yours alone, Dean. You had the weight of both Heaven and Hell pressing you to that blade. You might not be able to undo what you did in Hell, but you have done much good in the world. You are a good man, Dean Winchester. I forgive you.”

Cas. Castiel. His angel. Dean leaned forward on his knees, leaning in to Cas’s touch, to his forgiveness.

This wasn’t a magic fix. Dean wasn’t suddenly all better, and he knew Cas wasn’t either. It might not make all their guilt go away, but it lessened the weight on Dean’s shoulders, and he got the feeling it was lessening the weight on Cas’s, too.

“If you can forgive me, Cas, and you can accept that I forgive you, why can’t you forgive yourself?”

“Why can’t you?”

Touche. “I guess we’re just a couple dumbasses, right?”

Cas smiled. It was small and wan, but it was a smile.

Dean sat back on his feet, wiping his eyes. “So that’s it, huh? We’ve both done wrong, we’ve both hurt each other, and we both forgive each other. Mutual confessing and forgiving. Are we done once I say the latin-y part or do you need to kneel down and say it after me to finish this up?”

* * *

Castiel swallowed, his throat felt thick. The soles of his feet burned in the cooling water of the dishpan. His heart rate was elevated, and the pain seemed to throb along with his pulse. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Dean looked at him expectantly, but there was one sin that had not been laid bare. To speak it might forever damage his friendship with Dean, but to hold back was to obtain absolution dishonestly. There was bliss to ignorance, and perhaps Dean would be happier not to know. But how could Dean truly forgive him if he didn’t know the extent of Castiel’s wrongs? 

“There is… there is one more way that I have sinned against you.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened to a frown. “What do you mean?”

“When you… when you talked to me. In your car. Before you went to confront the Darkness…”

“I remember.”

“You told me… you told me I was family. That was I was a brother.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t… I don’t feel the same.”

Dean looked like he’d been punched. Raw hurt etched his face, but was immediately locked up in an icy hard mask.

So. Now Dean knew. He knew and he realized how wrong Castiel had been, his feelings perverted all their time together. He could just leave it like this, save himself the pain of uttering the final words, but no. He started this, he should finish it. Get it all out.

“My feelings.” Castiel closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “My… my _love_. For you. It’s… It’s not like a brother’s love.”

Castiel couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t look at Dean. As if keeping his eyes closed would keep Dean from reacting to Castiel’s final confession. Like sleeping through Sam’s Hell trauma, it was easier to keep his eyes closed than to face the consequences for his actions. He could only hope that Dean would still be able to forgive him. That Dean would be able, willing, to look past Castiel’s infraction of sentiment.

“You… What?”

Castiel shook his head. He couldn’t say it again.

“Your love…” Dean’s voice was strangled, weak. “W-what is it like then? If it’s not like a brother, what is it like?”

When Castiel couldn’t answer him, Dean insisted, “Cas, _tell _me. What kind is it?”

He should have known that it wouldn’t be enough to stop short of a full confession. If Dean were to ever possibly forgive him, Castiel must confess in full. This would be it. The final and complete confession.

“It is _eros_, romantic love. I love you. I am in love with you, Dean Winchester.”

Dean made a small whimper and Castiel threw his eyes open in surprise.

Dean’s eyes were wide, and he looked at Castiel with shocked confusion.

“No.” Dean shook his head. “You can’t be.”

Castiel hadn’t had any hope, so he didn’t slump with disappointment at Dean’s rejection. “I’m sorry. I know my feelings are a burden--”

“What? No. Your feelings, you… you’re not a burden, Cas.”

“I know you don’t feel the same, and that my feelings are something you don’t want--”

“That’s not it--”

“And I don’t want you to think I expect anything from you--”

“It’s okay--”

“Because I don’t. And I want to assure you that this doesn’t have to change anything between us--”

“It does.”

“And I--Oh.” He should have known that this would be too much for Dean. “I understand. I can leave…”

“What? No! I don’t want you to leave. I told you that this is your home, and that’s not going to change, no matter what.”

That was very kind of Dean, but he knew things were now going to be awkward between them and he wasn’t sure he could handle that. No, he would do anything to stay beside Dean, no matter how much it hurt, but he had a feeling Dean would find it too much. He would find excuse after excuse to not be around Castiel.

“Your feelings aren’t a burden. Your feelings… are the same as mine.”

What…? What did Dean just say? They’re feelings couldn’t be the same. Castiel loved Dean. Dean loved Castiel as a brother…

“They’re the same,” Dean repeated, since Castiel had taken too long to respond.

“But you said--”

“I know what I said!” Dean stood up in a rush. In the same motion, he turned his back on Castiel, stalking across the room.

Castiel looked down at his hands. _His body_. It was no longer just a vessel. It was his body.

He heard instead of saw as Dean opened the refrigerator. There was a clink of glass as he grabbed a beer, then the click as he popped the top off. He set the opener back onto the kitchen counter.

Castiel could imagine the sight of Dean raising his hand up, the bottle pressed against his lips as he tipped his head back. His adam’s apple bobbed as he drank deeply from the bottle.

Castiel could hear the splash of liquid remaining in the bottle as Dean walked back to the table. He _thunked _the bottle down and sat in the chair next to Cas.

He could feel Dean’s eyes upon him. Castiel kept his own gaze down.

Dean let out a large sigh.

“I lied, Cas.”

Castiel’s heart seized, and he looked up at Dean without meaning to. “...What?”

* * *

Dean leapt up onto his feet, much easier than he should have been able to do at his age and after kneeling on the ground for as long as he had been. He suspected Cas’s last touch had something to do with how little his knees were hurting. It was just like Cas to ignore his own excruciating pain to make sure Dean wasn’t hurting.

Cas loved him. It didn’t seem possible. Dean wasn’t worth that!

Cas was _in love_ with him. And that was a huge fucking problem because Dean was in love Cas, too. It had been so much easier to be in love with Cas when he didn’t think Cas loved him back!

Would he be ruining what they had? If they were to go ahead with this, would it ruin their friendship? Cas was his best friend and Dean couldn’t bear to lose that!

Dean dashed over to the fridge and opened it, grabbing a bottle of beer. He popped open the cap and took a large sip.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What did Dean know of love? He’d loved Cassie and she hadn’t believed him about the supernatural and broke up with him, refusing to be part of his life as a hunter. His time with Lisa… it wasn’t love. She had given more for him than anyone but his family, and he was grateful for the haven she’d provided, the generosity of her kindness, but it wasn’t love. Hell, he hadn’t even thought about her in years. But Cas...What he felt for Cas was beyond anything he felt for anyone else. When he had thought Cas had been dead… there hadn’t been a moment that went by that he didn’t feel an ache.

He’d told Cas that he was a brother. Because that was easier, safer, than telling him the truth.

Because the truth was terrifying. But wasn’t that what this whole thing was about? Being honest and open and forgiving? Despite his fears, Cas had spoken up. Could Dean do any less?

Dean walked back to the table and set his beer down. He sat in the chair next to Cas instead of kneeling back on the floor in front of him; he needed to be at eye level for the rest of this conversation.

“I lied, Cas.”

Cas’s head shot up, his eyes finding Dean’s. “What?”

“I lied,” Dean repeated. “My feelings, my l-love for you. It’s not like a brother, either.”

Cas’s big blue eyes widened, his face etched with shocked confusion.

“I thought I was about to die, and I didn’t want to ‘burden’ you with my feelings. I didn’t think you felt the same. And I… I didn’t want to risk losing what we had. Brotherly love… that’s something I’m familiar with. It was safer. But. It’s not what I feel for you either.”

“What are you saying?”

This would change things between them. This would change everything. But if he… if he didn’t tell Cas honestly how he felt for him... he was going to lose Cas. For good.

“I’m saying I’m in love with you, too.”

“You...you’re in love with me?” The corners of Cas’s mouth tilted up into the start of a smile, his eyes lighting up. “Our feelings are the same?”

Dean’s throat was dry, his palms were sweaty, and he really wished he had something stronger on hand than a beer. Should he step out to the library for some whisky? He could really use a shot of whisky right about now. Cas would probably get depressed if he left though. Shit, he should really keep a bottle of whisky in the kitchen.

Cas was feeling happier... and it was only making Dean feel worse. He _didn’t_ think their feelings were quite the same. Because if Cas had gotten so worked up over the concept of loving Dean, how much worse was the sin of Dean’s _lust_ for an angel of the lord?

He wanted Cas in his life, now and forever, and he’d be thrilled just to have that, but now Cas was giving him a glimpse of hope of something beyond that and Dean wanted so much _more_.

“When you say your feelings are _eros_, you say romantic. When I say mine are _eros_, I mean _erotic_. My feelings are tangled with my desire. I want you to understand, if we do this, if we… I would want to _touch _you. Kiss you.”

Dean paused, unsure how much further he should go, how much he should reveal. What he felt for Cas wasn’t ‘pure’, and he wanted no misunderstandings between them, not now. Not with this. If his base desires were going to ruin things, let him ruin it _now_. Let him burn it all down _now_.

Before he let himself hope.

“I want to fuck you. Be fucked by you. I would want it all, every inch of you,” Dean said, deliberately coarse so as to push Cas away with his vulgarity.

Dean turned, unable to watch Cas’s face as he processed how disgusting Dean was.

“I understand,” Cas said. “And I want that too.”

“We can keep things the way it’s been. It’s okay if you don’t want--”

“Dean.” Cas set a hand on Dean’s thigh just above his knee.

Shocked into looking up, Dean’s gaze locked onto Cas’s.

Deliberately staring at Dean, Cas moved his hand up a few inches. And _squeezed_.

Dean gulped loudly.

“I want that too,” Cas repeated.

“Y-yeah?” Dean’s mouth was suddenly dry.

He licked his lips and watched as Cas’s eyes dropped down to his mouth.

So yeah. This was a thing.

Despite Cas’s _very deliberate_ signs of interest, Dean was hesitant as he leaned forward. This was going to change everything between them. And what if Cas didn’t really want…?

As Dean moved in, Cas’s eyes blew wide.

Yeah. Cas wanted this. He might actually want this as much as Dean did--as unbelievable as that was!

Dean’s eyes fluttered closed and he pressed his forehead against Cas’s. Their mouths weren’t even an inch apart, their breaths shared. His heart pounded with the thrill...

A loud splash and water slooshing onto his legs startled Dean away from the near-kiss. Cas had dropped his foot into the dishpan and looked just as startled by the interruption as Dean.

His face went red. Cas stammered, “I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, Cas. We should finish up here anyway.”

Cas agreed.

“I forgive you, you know. I’ll tell you that every time you need to hear it. I forgive you.” Dean knelt down in front of Cas, lifting up his foot. This time Cas let him.

Though he didn’t think it was really needed anymore, as Dean cleaned Cas’s left foot, he spoke the words of Absolution, the same as Sam had.

He didn’t like talking about feelings and stuff. He felt awkward even trying. But he hadn’t spoken out loud the things he assumed Cas would understand, hadn’t communicated what he felt when Cas had needed to hear it clearly. This time, he’d make sure Cas understood him.

“I forgive you, Cas. And… And I love you. And I want you to stay by my side for the rest of our lives.”

Castiel smiled, and it was as if the sun burst out from behind dark clouds. Cas smiled, and Dean found the piece of himself that he’d been missing his entire life. Cas smiled, and Dean found his peace.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

There shouldn’t be any way for Dean to carry Cas down the hall on his own, but Cas was an angel, so apparently physics didn’t mean a damn thing for him. 

Dean paused when he got to his bedroom. He didn’t want to let Cas go. But he would if that’s what Cas wanted.

“Do you want me to bring you to your room, or would you like to spend the night. Here. With me.”

“I want to spend the night with you,” Cas answered. He touched Dean’s face. “I want to spend _every _night with you.”

Dean turned his head and kissed Cas’s palm. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tonight. Or any night.”

“Dean. I want this, too.”

Holding Cas close, Dean opened the door to _their_ bedroom and carried Cas across the threshold.

__

* * *

Castiel felt like he was floating. In Dean’s arms, it was like he had his wings again and he could almost feel the euphoria of the wind rustling through his feathers.

He didn’t want to let go of Dean. When Dean set him down on the bed, he reached to grab Dean back.

“Relax, honey. I’ll be right back. I need to get the lights and close the door. Don’t know if Sam’s still awake, but no need to give him a show if he is.”

Reluctantly, Castiel let Dean go.

Dean chuckled. He pressed his forehead against Castiel’s, their lips almost brushing.

“You’re so incredible,” Dean whispered against Castiel’s lips. “I’m going to make this so good for you.”

Castiel felt the tingle of the almost-touch even as Dean moved away. He drew his hand up and hovered his fingertips over his lips.

Dean turned on the light on the table beside the bed. The glow of the light enveloped his body, following him across the room in a way Castiel could not. If he was his true self, Castiel would be able to touch Dean in the same way. If he still had his wings, he could keep a wing wrapped around Dean, keep him warm and safe and near. But Castiel had a physical form now. It was his, and he did not think he could survive leaving it anymore. This was who he was now. This body. With its limiting form. And its aching muscles and sore feet. But this form was also the one that Dean could touch. To touch Dean and be touched by Dean…

After closing the door, Dean stopped at the foot of the bed instead of returning to Castiel’s side.

Dean angled his body so he was mostly facing away from Castiel. He leaned forward, bending his torso in half. He pulled at his shoestings and untied his boots. Remaining half-bent down, he toed off his boots then removed his socks. When he straightened up, his face was flushed in a way that didn’t seem to have to do with the fact that he’d had his head down; he was shifting his eyes away in a manner that suggested embarrassment or discomfort.

With his right hand Dean undid the button on his pants, while he trailed his left hand up the center of his chest to his right shoulder. He pushed his shoulder forward and slid his flannel down his arm to his elbow. He lifted his right hand, caressing up his chest to his left shoulder. He thrust his chest forward as he reached his arms behind him and pulled the flannel off, dropping it onto the floor.

The henley was the next item to come off, flashing a glimpse of Dean’s bare skin because his unbuttoned jeans sat lower on his hips than if they had still been buttoned.

Castiel wanted to reach out to touch him, to help, but he had a feeling that this was not the time for that. Dean wanted to do this for him. He gripped the sheets to hold on to _something_ and watched as Dean inched his t-shirt over his pectorals, over his head, dropping it to the floor with his other discarded clothes.

His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened his eyes and with deliberate focus, locked his eyes onto Castiel’s.

Staring intently at Castiel, Dean slid both hands down his torso to the waistband of his pants and pushed them down his thighs. Once past his knees, he let the pants drop to the floor.

He stood up again, turned slightly, then back, as if uncertain in what direction he wanted to be facing for the removal of his final article of clothing. He ended up facing Castiel as he slowly slid his boxers off his body.

“Do you… Do you like what you see?” Though he cocked his lips into a grin and gave an exaggerated wink, the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes and he balled his hands into fists to stop their shaking.

“Yes,” Castiel answered, first because it was true, and secondly in the hopes that doing so would ease Dean’s nerves. “You are a very beautiful man.”

Dean’s ears went pink, but the edges of his mouth lifted into a small smile. Castiel had answered well.

In opposition to his obvious pleasure at Cas’s words, he tilted his head down abashedly and said, “Geez, Cas. You don’t say that about guys.”

Castiel tilted his head in confusion.

“Guys aren’t ‘beautiful’,” Dean explained, though the explanation still made no sense to Castiel. “We’re ‘handsome’ or… or ‘cool’.”

“But you are exceptionally beautiful, by most metrics of beauty,” Castiel insisted. “Your face is remarkably symmetrical, and your eyes--”

* * *

Geez, he’d been called ‘pretty’ more times than he could count, though usually it was said with a slightly condescending tone and with particular emphasis on his ‘luscious pink ‘cocksucking’ lips’. But Cas was completely sincere in his appreciation for Dean’s ‘beauty’.

As if Cas wasn’t the most stunning being around...

And yeah, sure, much of Cas’s good looks were all due to the body he’d gotten, but Jimmy didn’t have this thrum of energy just underneath his skin or a smile that could light up the room!

“All right there, Romeo. I get the point,” Dean said, interrupting Cas’s effusive praise for Dean’s ‘aesthetically pleasing features’. 

Dean had gotten naked in front of countless strangers, but there was something about stripping in front of Cas--and Cas had seen him stripped down to his _soul_. Hell, in Hell Cas had seen his soul when he’d been more demon than human! But this wasn’t just stripping down for some one night bit of fun. He was attempting to arouse an angel of the lord, his best friend, and the man he’d been in love with for years and never believed he could be with like this.

And yet here they were. Dean was fully naked and Cas was sprawled across his bed, a present all ready to be unwrapped.

Dean was going to savor every moment.

He sat on the edge of the bed, snug against Cas’s hip. Cas sat up, pulling at his shirt, but Dean pressed his hand on Cas’s chest and pushed him back down to the bed.

He leaned on Cas, nuzzling his neck before whispering into his ear, “Let me do this for you.”

There had been words--too many words!--because Cas needed him to speak up so he had talked. But now he wanted to do what felt more natural to him; he wanted to _show_ Cas how much he loved him.

Cas tilted his neck, giving Dean more access to his throat, and his body pliant in Dean’s arms, letting himself be pulled upwards.

Since Cas was wearing Dean’s clothes, his outfit was more or less identical to Dean’s, albeit without boots or socks, but with just as many layers on the rest of him. Dean caressed his hands up Cas’s chest, bringing his fingers over Cas’s shoulders, under his flannel. He ran his hands along Cas’s shoulders, down his arms, taking the shirt off as he went. With one hand holding Cas up, Dean grabbed the flannel from behind Cas and set it on the floor, out of the way.

One layer gone.

He shifted his hold on Cas, laying him back down onto the bed. Dean brought his leg over Cas, shifting his stance so he was straddling him. Cas’s jeans were a bit rough on Dean’s inner thighs, but it was a good sort of rough. It made it real and not just one of the thousand dreams he’d had.

He took Cas’s hands, entwining their fingers. He guided Cas’s hands up, bringing his hands over his head. Leaving one hand holding Cas’s hand, he released the other. With his free hand, he ran it along Cas’s face, his jaw, his lips.

He wanted to kiss them. He’d dreamed of it since he first met Cas, and hundreds of times in the years since. But after their aborted attempt in the kitchen, Dean was going to work up to it, make Cas burn for it.

Squeezing Cas’s hand before letting go, Dean shifted his hands to place them on the bed, one on each side of Cas. He straightened his arms out, like a push-up, but let his head hang low, hovering over Cas’s lips but not quite touching. He undulated his body, teasingly not touching as he shifted his hips down a little lower. He planted his knees on the outside of Cas’s thighs and drew his body back just over Cas’s body, like the waves over a sandy beach, until he pulled himself up so he was sitting on Cas’s upper thighs.

He moved his hands down Cas’s side and splayed them on Cas’s belly, his fingers inching under Cas’s henley. He drew his hands down along Cas’s abs until he reached the top of his jeans, his fingers slipping between Cas’s back and the bed. 

He inched the shirt up as Cas arched his back to give more clearance to Dean’s hands sliding along his spine. Cas’s face disappeared when Dean brought the shirt over his head. As he leaned forward to pull the shirt off of Cas’s hands, Dean pushed his hips up and brought his head down so he could nose along Cas’s jaw. Cas turned to let their lips meet but Dean gave a little shake, the tip of his nose rubbing against Cas’. Not yet.

****

Dean lowered his hips down, pulling himself back upright to repeat the process with Cas’s t-shirt. This time was better because this time he was getting down to Cas’s bare skin as he inched the shirt up his body.

With Cas half naked under him, Dean couldn’t wait a second longer to see Cas fully naked. He undid the button and zipper on Cas’s jeans and instead of doing just the jeans, he pulled off Cas’s boxers at the same time.

With one foot off the bed now for balance, Dean knelt at the foot of the bed at Cas’s feet. Cas was sprawled out before him, naked of all but the bandages on his feet. It almost looked like he was wearing socks and Dean might have laughed at that if it wasn’t for the fact that they _were_ bandages because Cas was _injured_.

Cas was also flushed, pupils dilated, and already breathing a bit hard. They hadn’t even done anything yet and Cas was already getting worked up. Dean couldn’t wait to see how more worked up he could get Cas with what he had planned next.

Dean started with Cas’s right foot. He gingerly picked it up by holding onto Cas’s ankle. He lifted the foot to his lips and kissed the top of it. He set the right foot down and did the same to the left one. He leaned forward and nuzzled his nose against where Cas’s ankle bump would be if it wasn’t covered with bandages. He lifted his chin, bringing his lips to the edge of the bandages on Cas’s calf. He kissed that spot.

He shifted his weight onto his knee, drawing his other leg back onto the bed. Kneeling over Cas, Dean kissed a trail of little licks, gentle nibbles, and light pecks, and teasing sucks up Cas’s leg, from his calf, to his knee, and all up his inner thigh.

Dean nuzzled into the dark curls around Cas’s shaft. Cas inhaled a sharp hiss of breath, his right hand flying down and he gripped into Dean’s hair.

Dean paused in his ministrations. “Too much?” he asked.

Cas vehemently shook his head. “No. More. More, please!”

More Dean could do.

He gave light, little kisses up Cas’s dick. He could do more, oh, he _wanted_ to do _more_; after all, he’d already washed an angel’s feet, what was a blow job? 

No, that would end things too soon. He gave a final kiss to the tip and moved on.

He licked up the line from Cas’s dick to his hip bone, which was sharp enough to cut glass and deserved every little nibble he gave it.

He nibbled along Cas’s hip bone to his belly. The month hiding in his room not doing much hadn’t done enough to fill Cas out again; his stomach was still sunk in more than it should be. Dean would make sure Cas ate more, regardless of whether Cas thought he needed to or not. And if he wanted, Cas could maybe join Sam for his morning yoga and jogging (ugh) and maybe some sparring with Dean in the gym (yay!). It would be good for all of them. Operation Take Care of Cas.

If he could fill up Cas’s belly with kisses, he would. He was certainly trying.

He startled at the feel of Cas’s hand sliding around to cup his face. Dean looked up Cas’s torso to find Cas gazing at him with a surprisingly tender expression.

Dean surged upwards, unable to hold back from kissing Cas anymore. His lips met first with Cas’s chin, then the edge of his mouth before he connected into a proper kiss. Their first kiss. At last...

* * *

This! This was why bodies! Oh, he could never have imagined!

The level of pain was now explained by the extent of pleasure this physical form could experience!

And that it was Dean, Dean, Dean… Of course it had to be Dean! Dean was all around him, in his sight, hearing, scent, taste, and touch. Dean was filling him with love, and how could he have ever have doubted that Dean loved him?

The foot bathing might have been an absolution, a rite of forgiveness, but this… this was a rite of a more personal forgiveness. A rite of learning to love and letting himself be loved and oh, how he was loved!

The weight of Dean’s body pressed onto his, Dean’s heat searing into him...

Kiss after kiss, Castiel was drowning in the physicality of Dean, himself, and their bodies entwined together.

Kiss after kiss, Castiel lost his sense of time, but this time he wasn’t worried--not because he couldn’t feel worry, but because if he could spend eternity in this one moment, this would be his Heaven! But Heaven was a pale shadow to this...

He’d always thought he wanted to be needed, but what he really wanted was to be _wanted_. He didn’t need to be powerful. He didn’t need to be useful. He needed to be himself. And that was enough.

_He_ was enough.

* * *

Their bodies moved together, slow, gentle, slick with sweat. It wasn’t hurried or desperate. It was a comfortable intimacy he never thought he’d have, let alone during a first time with someone.

Dean had experienced nights where he hadn’t cared if he got off or not. He’d always made sure his partner had a good time, but there were times that was enough for him. Tonight, with Cas, orgasming didn’t really matter. Hell, there wasn’t any penetration, no hands on dicks. Just the slide of their bodies as they kissed and caressed, and any happy feeling in his dick was incidental. He wasn’t chasing a climax. He wasn’t chasing anything at all. It wasn’t about getting off. 

It was about Cas, and letting Cas feel Dean’s love for him. Letting himself accept that Cas loved him too.

When they eventually orgasamed, it was almost an afterthought.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” Cas whispered as he came, a chant almost like a prayer, but one that Dean understood. Cas said ‘Dean’ and it meant ‘I love you’.

Warmly pressed together, his angel entwined in his arms, Dean had what he always wanted. 

Maybe it wasn’t what he’d always imagined. Not a white picket fence, no marriage to a woman and two-point-five kids. There were still monsters to hunt. But there were no more big apocalypses looming over them, no more cosmic meddling with their lives. He had his brother and he had the man he loved, _here_, staying with him.

Peace wasn’t pretty. It was bandaged feet and soppy conversations. It was his brother awkwardly leaving the room but knowing he was safe a few doors down the hall. It was long days on the road to hunting ghosts and monsters. Nothing was perfect. This peace he’d found was messy, and awkward, and it required work, and for that it was perfect.

Dean had his family. 

His peace.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Sam was an awesome brother. 

He balanced the tray of food with one hand and opened the door to Dean’s room with the other. Sam didn’t bother to knock; his brother would still be asleep and he got grumpy if woken up, but since he was used to sharing a hotel room with Sam, he likely wouldn’t budge an inch if Sam slipped into his room for a moment. Besides, Sam was bringing him the gift of coffee, so yeah, Sam was a friggin’ awesome brother.

The rest of the food was for Cas, but Dean’s room was on the way and Sam was totally boosting his awesome brother points by leaving Dean some coffee to wake up to.

He slipped into the room and gave himself a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light before he crossed over to leave the coffee on Dean’s bedside table.

“Oh!” Sam exclaimed without meaning to.

Dean lifted his head, his eyes blearily looking for the source of the noise that had woken him.

Sam hadn’t meant to make a sound, but he also hadn’t expected to see Cas in bed _with_ Dean.

Still, he supposed it made sense; considering how emotional Cas had been last night, it was for the best that he hadn’t slept alone. He probably should have swung by to check on Cas during the night, but after Sam had left the kitchen to give Dean and Cas some privacy, he wound up falling asleep pretty hard himself.

He was glad Dean had been sensible enough to keep Cas close. Of course, Dean was very much a mother-hen, so Sam should have known he’d make Cas sleep in his bed so he could keep an eye on him through the night.

He did _not_ expect to see Dean full-body blush, going red from the tip of his ears all the way down his chest.

“Um, this… this…” Dean stammered. 

What was with all the blushing and stammering? Yeah, he’d totally tease his brother mercilessly. But _later_. He wasn’t going to do it where Cas would misinterpret and risk making Cas upset.

“D-during the whole Absolution thing,” Dean continued, flustered, “Cas… Cas thought I-we..._I_ had missed a few things. When...when he was confessing things. He, um. He _confessed_.”

It took Sam too long to realize what Dean was saying. “He confe-- Oh!”

“Yeah.”

Over the past few years Sam had come to realize his brother wasn’t straight, so that wasn’t a surprise. And he really shouldn’t be surprised that Dean and Cas had feelings for each other. There always was something between the two of them. And yet he _was _surprised.

He hadn’t realized it had been like _that _for them.

Sam thought of Cas as a friend. And sure, he knew there was something more for Dean and Cas, but he hadn’t realized it was _more_ more. Yeah, Dean had checked Cas out a time or two and they did tend to stare into each other’s eyes for hours at a time, but...

At this point, Sam had been quiet too long trying to process this new information, and Dean’s worried expression was morphing into his closed-off defensiveness. Sam schooled his expression into a gently pleased smile.

“Then I should say congratulations to you both. I’m really happy for you.”

Dean’s wariness eased, the tense lines around his eyes smoothing out.

Sam couldn’t say that he wasn’t a bit anxious about Dean and Cas entering into a relationship together, and he certainly had some concern that Dean was going with this because he wanted to make Cas happy, but he had to imagine that Dean wouldn’t agree to it if he hadn’t felt the same, so even if it wasn’t something Sam expected, it must be the case? And Sam did want them to be happy.

“So what did you want?” Dean asked.

“I was going to leave you some coffee and bring Cas some breakfast, but I guess I can leave the whole tray here, then.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re bringing Cas breakfast in bed?”

“Unless his Grace is working again, he really shouldn’t be on his feet for a day or two,” Sam explained as he brought the tray over towards Dean. “After yesterday, I thought it would help Cas if we were more demonstrative that we care.”

As Sam set the tray down on Dean’s lap, Cas sniffed the air, his head angling towards the tray, apparently smelling the food in his sleep.

Dean looked down at Cas, his eyes softened as his mouth formed a dorky, syrupy sweet smile.

Yeah, okay. There was something _more_ for both of them.

Cas sat up, blinking owlishly as consciousness filled him. “Dean.”

“Hey you.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Good morning, Cas.”

Cas looked around and saw Sam. “Sam. Good morning.”

“I brought you some breakfast. Toast with peanut butter and grape jelly, and some sunny-side up eggs. You don’t have to share with Dean if you don’t want. I made this for you. Dean can get his lazy ass to the kitchen to make his own if he wants food.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

As Cas started poking at the food, Dean helped himself to a triangle of toast, one of the peanut butter pieces. He shoved about half of it into his mouth, and with his mouth full asked, “So what’s with the breakfast in bed routine though? I figured we’d get something on the road.”

“You have a hunt?” Cas asked, pausing mid-bite.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said. “I called Jody first thing and told her to get another hunter to take care of it.”

“I thought Jody said we were the closest--oh.” Dean got it about five seconds too late.

Cas deflated, setting his toast down onto the plate uneaten. “You had to refuse the hunt because of me. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Cas. There _are_ other hunters who can take that case. _We_ are the only ones who can take care of you. We’re the only ones that can help get you back on your feet.”

“Literally,” Dean added, patting Cas’s legs through the blankets.

“We were too busy running around on hunts when you needed us here, with you. And you’re important to us.”

“You’re family,” Dean concluded.

“But without my Grace, I’m powerless. I’m _useless _to you…”

“No one is ever useless,” Sam said.

“Even without your powers, you can do a lot,” Dean assured. Then thought better of it. “That is, uh. If you _want_ to hunt. If you don’t want to hunt, you don’t have to hunt. I was just assuming you wanted to hunt with us, but if you don’t, you don’t gotta. I don’t want you to think you do. You don’t.”

“What Dean is trying to say is that you just being you is enough. We’ll support you, whatever you want to do.”

Dean agreed. “It doesn’t matter what kind of shape you’re in when you’re family.”

Cas smiled softly, his expression surprised but pleased. They clearly hadn’t done enough to let Cas know how much he meant to them. Sam resolved to speak up more. Not just to Cas, but to Dean and their friends, too.

“So, since we have the day off, what do you want to do?” Dean asked Cas.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Well, I think in general we’ll want to avoid more Netflix bingeing, but I think for today while we’re keeping you off your feet, maybe we could watch something together. I pirated the new Captain America movie.”

“Could you save that for me? I’d like to watch it, too,” Sam said.

“Why don’t you watch it with us?” Cas asked

Sam was surprised. “You want me to watch with you?” He looked over at his brother to gauge his reaction.

Dean shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Why not? Sam figured that they’d want to be alone together. Doing things Sam did _not_ want to think about.

“I think we could use a day of family bonding,” Dean explained. “Besides, Cas and I have plenty of time to ‘Netflix and Chill’.”

“I thought you didn’t want me spending all day watching Netflix?” Cas asked.

“What? Oh, no. That’s not… You know what? Nevermind, Cas. I’ll explain later.”

That would be a conversation Sam would be very glad not to be a part of, and would like to be nowhere near when it happened.

And speaking of wanting to be elsewhere when it happened. “Well, I’m not going to watch a movie in here with you both in your boxers. I’m going to go take a shower; that should give you both enough time to finish eating and get dressed.”

“Oh. Guess that means we should put on some boxers, huh, Cas?”

“Oh, gross.” Sam rolled his eyes at their joke. And then he noticed the piles of clothes on the floor around the bed. Which included boxers. “Oh, gross!” Sam exclaimed, wincing his eyes closed. He so did not need that mental image.

And since that hadn’t been enough because fuck his life, Cas added, “If we’re going to watch something in here, we should probably also change the sheets.”

Sam groaned, and Dean burst out laughing, entirely too pleased with how he and his boyfriend were mentally scarring Sam for life. Sam doubted Cas even knew what was causing Dean to laugh so much, but Dean happy made Cas happy, judging from the honest-to-God smile on Cas’s face.

“I hate you so much right now,” Sam told Dean, and flipped him off. They were brats, the pair of them!

Dean’s smug laughter followed Sam down the hall, but so did the image of Cas’s delighted smile.

Geez. What trouble were they going to subject Sam to? Dean was bad enough on his own without Cas joining in! (One big brother was bad enough... now he had a second one!)

Well, despite their efforts to mentally scar him, for the sake of Cas’s rare smile, Sam could be the bigger man and make up a bit more breakfast for them. 

They were fucking lucky Sam really was such an awesome brother!

* * *

When Dean knocked on the door, Castiel made a note of the page he was on and set the book down. Slaughterhouse-Five. It was Dean’s favorite book, and though Castiel knew the plot from Metatron’s influence, he was hoping to come to appreciate it the way Dean did by reading it himself. Besides, Dean had looked exceptionally thrilled when he’d stopped by to check on Castiel and saw him reading it.

“Cas?” Dean called as he opened the door and stuck his head in. “You awake?”

“Yes. Are you ready?” Castiel asked.

“Yeah, sorry it took so long.”

“Not at all. I look forward to seeing the ‘pillow fort’.”

“It’s not a pillow fort!” Castiel heard Sam’s voice call from the hall.

“It’s totally a pillow fort,” Dean informed Castiel.

When Dean reached the edge of the bed, Castiel lifted his arms up and angled himself forward to make it easier for Dean to get his arms around him. With Dean’s right arm under his back and his left arm supporting his legs, Castiel wrapped his arms around Dean’s neck while Dean lifted him up.

“You’re really light,” Dean said as he carried Castiel out of his bedroom and down the hall.

“Am I?”

“Dude. I should _not_ be able to carry a fully grown man in my arms like this.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all you have to say?! ‘Oh.’?!”

Castiel wasn’t particularly trying to be light and said as much.

“Must be some weird angel thing. You were really friggin’ heavy when you were unconscious.”

Dean’s steps faltered to a stop at the door to the library. He was shaking slightly and his eyes were locked to a spot on the floor in the center of the room that was normally blocked by one of the tables. It was the spot Dean had almost stabbed Castiel with his angel blade when he’d fallen under the control of the Mark of Cain.

Castiel shifted a hand to Dean’s left shoulder and squeezed. He couldn’t quite reach the exact spot on Dean’s arm, but it was close enough that the touch broke Dean’s focus on the floor.

“I forgive you. I’ll tell you that every time you need to hear it,” Castiel whispered Dean’s words back to him.

Dean hugged Castiel tighter to his chest and walked into the room.

“It’s a little late to be hesitating at crossing the threshold,” Sam said from further in the room. “For one, you’ve already crossed _that_ threshold. And two, you better not be doing any post-threshold crossing stuff in this room. Ever. It’s a common room.”

“When Cas is awake, he’s apparently all kinds of light. I can carry him over _aaaaaallllll _the thresholds in the Bunker. We’re totally going to do it everywhere.”

“Gross. No you’re not.”

“Hey, you were the one who said we should be doing post-threshold crossing stuff when we cross thresholds.”

“That is not even remotely what I said.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you said. Right, Cas?”

Though the brothers were bickering, it seemed to be good-natured. Castiel didn’t feel like he knew how to join in so instead of answering, he pointed to a structure across the room. “Is that the ‘pillow fort’?”

Sam threw up his hands and let out an exasperated sigh. “Not you, too!”

Dean laughed, carrying Castiel further into the room and giving him a clear view of the structure. Dean and Sam had pushed back one of the tables in the center of the room to give more space, and in the alcove next to it, they had dragged a spare mattress. The mattress had a couple blankets and a great many pillows on top of it as well as another blanket held above by four chairs, creating a canopy. On a platform of books on the floor in front of the pushed-back table, Sam had set up Castiel’s television. Beside the ‘pillow fort’, Dean had placed three large bowls of popcorn and three bottles of soda.

“What do you think?” Dean asked, carrying Castiel over to it.

“It looks perfect,” Castiel said.

“Damn right it does. It’s the best pillow fort ever!”

“It’s not a pillow fort,” Sam insisted as he took off his boots and settled into the ‘pillow fort’.

“Dude, it’s _totally_ a pillow fort. I’d been thinking about getting a couple easy chairs for my Dean Cave, but I might just do a pillow fort like this in there!”

Dean knelt down to let Castiel scootch onto the mattress. He settled next to Sam with his back leaning on some pillows, making sure he left enough room for Dean to sit next to him.

“You say this now,” Sam said, “but wait until you try to get off the floor later.”

“Are you saying I’m old?!” Dean sputtered, toeing off his boots and plopping down on the mattress.

“No, I’m not saying that,” Sam said. “But I am _heavily implying _it.”

“Well, you...you’re old!” Dean retorted, tossing the pillow he’d been about to lean against at Sam.

“Not as old as you.” Sam threw the pillow back at Dean.

“Not as old as me,” Castiel added, and punctuated his statement by throwing a pillow at both of them.

Knocked over from the pillows hitting them, Dean and Sam looked stunned for a moment before bursting out with laughter.

Castiel smiled. He’d been able to join their ‘joking’!

Still chuckling, the brothers settled into place on either side of Castiel. Beyond the warmth of the blankets around them, Castiel basked in the heat, the weight, of Dean and Sam’s bodies supporting his. Of their comforting presence surrounding him... Like his wings.

Castiel had spent millions of years as an Angel of the Lord, a soldier of Heaven; that was all he’d ever known and he hadn’t been able to imagine an existence aside from that. Since meeting Dean, though, his sense of identity had been ripped away the same as his wings, leaving him struggling to understand where he belonged: in the Heaven he no longer believed in or with humanity he couldn’t quite understand. He had stood on a precipice, and his lack of wings felt like a gaping void he would never be able to fill.

But now sitting between the two people he loved most in the world, who chose him to be a part of their family--Sam as a brother, Dean as a lover--these two who wanted Castiel around because of who he was, not what he could do... 

Castiel had finally come home.


End file.
